1
When
I shook hands with liberal Democratic candidate Eugene McCarthy in 1968, it
never occurred to me that in 2012 I’d be citing memorable passages from his
1964 book A Liberal Answer to the
Conservative Challenge. But then
it never occurred to me that anything written about current affairs in that
time period would apply so aptly to the world of 2012 as I found that many of
McCarthy’s observations seem to do today.
This
is true, I think, for two reasons: (a) the fact that the statements were so perceptive
in their own time, and (b) the fact that the tension between liberal principles
and perceptions and conservative principles and perceptions is an enduring – if
not permanent – feature of American culture.
As
I came to the end of Part One of this report, I had finished leafing through
McCarthy’s Introduction “The Banner Yet Waves” and Part I “The Scales of
Economic Justice.” Part II is called,
“Of Payrolls and Poverty.”
2
The
first chapter of this section is “The Poor, Their Plight and Rights.” Here are some key passages.
“[In 1964] … the
number of poor in the United States [is estimated] as being as being 40 and 50
million people.” [p. 37]
This number of poor Americans would have been about
23% of the total population in 1964. As
the 1960s and early ’70s boomed along, the percentage of poor in this country
was cut down to about 11% in 1973. By
the 2010 census, that percentage had risen again by over 4%.
“Nearly 7 million people depend on public assistance for all or part of
the income they must have for basic necessities …We have 65 million citizens in
the United States who are 65 years or over… Most of these people have very
limited financial means. …It is estimated that 14 million American families
live in substandard or deteriorating homes…” [p. 37]
“…There is no doubt that poverty is still a fact of life in the United
States.” [p. 37]
And poverty in America certainly seems to be a fact
of life again, over 16% and rising in 2010, especially when we contrast the
percentage at the bottom of the wealth scale with those at the top.
“Under such conditions does government have any obligation? The conservative position generally is that
it does not; the liberal position is that it does have a responsibility.” [p.
38]
“President [Franklin] Roosevelt expressed his view…in his State of the
Union Address of 1944: ‘We cannot be content, no matter how high the general
standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people – whether it be
one-third or one fifth or one tenth – is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and
insecure. …Necessitous men are not free men.’” [p. 40-1]
“These have been the elements of the liberal program and, to the extent
these needs are not met, they remain as essential parts of the liberal
program.” [p. 42]
3
The following chapter, Chapter 2 of Part II by this
1968 presidential hopeful was called “The Real Right to Work.” First, some of McCarthy’s general
observations:
“Unemployment is in many ways the most difficult if not the central
problem of our free economy and our free society.” [p. 42]
“In a liberal view, ‘the right to work’ is too closely related to basic
human rights to be used as a mere slogan against unionization.” [p. 48]
“Neither unrelieved leisure activities nor idleness is the road to
happiness. Man by nature needs more than
satisfaction of his capacity to consume.
He needs also to produce, to construct, to add some degree of perfection
to goods or to provide services for other men.” [p. 48]
These are statements about 1964 …or are they about 2012?
“Many thousands of Americans suffer long-term unemployment today because
of age, race, lack of proper training, or obsolescence of once valued skills.”
[p. 42]
“Economic theories should not divert us from the simple, positive
response that justice demands when we see the misery and hopelessness in which
too many of our people now live. Evasion
of their just claim for help is faulty democracy as well as bad economics.” [p.
45]
What about conservatives’ and liberals’ contrasting
positions on unemployment?
“What is the conservative answer? … that there always must be workers
changing jobs, industries declining as others rise, and a ready labor supply
available for new products or extra shifts…[or] that current unemployment is
temporary…[or] that the problem is local [and] it should be left to industry or
to the states.” [p. 45]
“The liberal position emphasizes federal responsibility.” [p. 45]
“…The federal government should stand ready with emergency public works
programs to help meet the very special problems of recession or unusual
temporary disturbances in the economic life of the country.” [p. 47]
In the 1950s, from reading the newspapers I had
inferred that what distinguished Republicans from Democrats was the level of
unemployment that each party considered “normal.” Democrats, I’d concluded, thought that
unemployment of about 3% was more or less appropriate for a healthy economy; a
higher level of unemployment would lead Democrats to intervene. Republicans thought 6% unemployment was tolerable,
and only if a larger percentage were out of work would they consider taking
action.
In recent times, conservatives have resisted
significant intervention even when the unemployment rate was well over 10%.
4
The last chapter of Part II is called “The
Challenge of Automation.” Here are what
seem to me the key statements:
“Work is an activity which for most…is an expression of the human
person.” [p. 50]
“In the middle of the 19th century, John Stuart Mill, writing
as a philosopher of liberal economics, said that there cannot be a more ‘legitimate
object of the legislator’s care than the interests of those who are sacrificed
to the gain of their fellow citizens and prosperity – those displaced by
changing methods of production.’” [p. 52]
So far, McCarthy in this chapter was writing of basic
liberal tenets.
“…[The legislator’s] decision may be to establish or maintain national
programs of security; to improve the social security program so as to make it
more effective, to have a national program of health insurance, to have a more
satisfactory unemployment compensation program based upon national standards.”
[p. 54]
“We have been challenged to work out devices and procedures under which
every person can have a claim and a share of that which is produced.” [p. 55]
All these statements would be true for the liberal
at any time.
5
Part III of McCarthy’s book is called “The Responsibilities
of Responsible Government.” That sounds
important. I will review it carefully
before writing Part Three of this report.
“Stay tuned!”
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