I Am a Reality-Based Center-Left Technocrat...

Eric Rauchway writes:

Open University: PAGING MICHAEL KAZIN: Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong wander across Michael Kazin's turf, and DeLong isn't being nice about it:

But when I read Paul's call for "smart, bold populism," I am reminded of earlier calls a couple of decades ago by Milton Friedman, Marty Feldstein, and their ilk for smart, bold conservatism or smart, bold libertarianism. But they did not get what they ordered: on the economic policy front the policies of Reagan and of Bush II have been a horrible botch. What populist policies that we can think of would be smart? And how can we make our high politicians allergic to populist policies that are stupid?

Lyndon Johnson, yes. William Jennings Bryan, no.

In Bryan's defense, some Populist policies that were not so bad were substituting the income tax for the tariff, establishing a managed currency, and generally opposing corruption in the press corps and the government.

But of course, I'm pretty sure that's not really what either Krugman or DeLong means. What they seem to mean by populism is, a movement championing the downtrodden, wielding the symbols of oppression against the oppressor. And DeLong seems to demur, noting the dangers of symbolic politics and (tacitly) disputing Krugman's argument for more "workers' bargaining power"--an idea that, let's note, Matthew Yglesias recently proposed as better than most LBJ-like solutions.

Temperamentally, personally, I think I'm with DeLong on this: but temperamentally, personally, I'm not the representative voter. Making a judgment as to whether the Democrats should adopt a more populist approach to politics depends on how you judge that representative voter. Is DeLong right to think she'd be more moved by tax policy proposals than populism?

I am, as I said above, a reality-based center-left technocrat. I am pragmatically interested in government policies that work: that are good for America and for the world. My natural home is in the bipartisan center, arguing with center-right reality-based technocrats about whether it is center-left or center-right policies that have the best odds of moving us toward goals that we all share--world peace, world prosperity, equality of opportunity, safety nets, long and happy lifespans, rapid scientific and technological progress, and personal safety. The aim of governance, I think, is to achieve a rough consensus among the reality-based technocrats and then to frame the issues in a way that attracts the ideologues on one (or, ideally, both) wings in order to create an effective governing coalition.

For example, Senator Arlen Specter's attempt at dealing with the asbestos-caused cancer mess, for example, was a reasonable take at a hard issue, and he tried to sell it (a) to the left as social insurance that gets more money to people who have been dealt a horrible hand by the system, and (b) to the right as a reform that sticks it to the trial lawyers. (He failed: the left saw it as too damaging to the trial lawyers, the right saw it as too big a giveaway of public money, and both saw it as depriving them of an important fund-raising issue.)

Right now Paul Krugman and I seem to have two disagreements.

First, I think--being as I am here at Berkeley under the powerful (but benevolent) intellectual dictatorship and hegemony of David Card) on labor issues--that the benefits of using government policies to strengthen unions (while they are certainly there) are much smaller than Paul judges them to be.

Second, while I am profoundly, profoundly disappointed and disgusted by the surrender of the reality-based wing of the Republican policy community to the gang of Republican political spivs who currently hold the levers of power, I do think that there is hope that they will come to their senses and that building pragmatic technocratic policy coalitions from the center outward will be possible and is our best chance.

Paul, I think, believes otherwise: The events of the past decade and a half have convinced him, I think, that people like me are hopelessly naive, and that the Democratic coalition is the only place where reality-based discourse is possible. Thus, in his view, the best road forward to (a) make the Democratic coalition politically dominant through aggressive populism, and then (b) to argue for pragmatic reality-based technocratic rather than idealistic fantasy-based ideological policies within the Democratic coalition.

He may well be right.

Comments

[Tudalu]

A challenge to debate has been issued to Brad DeLong by another blogger, over here.

http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/nobody_who_is_a.html

[bobbyp]

I do think that there is hope that they will come to their senses and that building pragmatic technocratic policy coalitions from the center outward will be possible and is our best chance.

Disagree. The yahoos on the far right have successfully harnessed (1.) deep cultural resentments conflated with a phony sense of "oppression", and (2.) block voting by southerners to cement political dominance; and (3.) The paymasters in the corporate world have seen fit to go along with this scam.

Center left technocrats do not address (1.), have no response to (2.) and the chances of turning around (3.) are problematical--given the obvious self interests of corporate economic power.

Like you say--Paul may have a point.

[Rob]

Lets keep in mind that Williams Jenning Bryan's populism was of a specific form. Meaning it was populism for a certain sector, farmers and rural interests and against city interests be they rich or poor.

[Lee A. Arnold]

For populist motion pictures of the distribution of income and wage taxes, see the first part of "Social Security" at (copy & paste:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tts2uTWt6e8

and Chapter 2 of "Tax Cuts" at (copy &paste:)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SA1f2MefsMM

If you have already seen these little financial flow-chart movies, please notify your Democratic Congressional candidate about them! There are just two months left until the election!

YouTube videos are FREE. They can be seen, emailed to others, and embedded to other websites.

Hit every issue! Take back Congress!

[jerry]

Reality-based: good, there are objective standards to measure your opinions and judgment against.

Center-left: bad, defining yourself to be of the center seems good, after all, everything in moderation.

Defining yourself of the center means that you are vulnerable to any change, perceived or real, valid, or not, as to where that middle position lies.

By many standards, Bill Clinton (who I love, who you worked for) governed to the right of Richard Nixon. But that means that the center position when you and I were growing up has changed quite dramatically from a center position now.

In the 60s, unions were strong, and so (I am guessing cause I am just an engineer) were trade agreements. In the 80s and 90s, it seemed to be the middle position that unions had outgrown their usefulness, and that free trade seemed to be better for us. In the 00s we find that workers have not shared in the benefits of either free trade, productivity increases, and that America herself is at risk from free trade, especially when compounded by greedy incompetent Administrations.

By consciously maintaining a "middle" position, you allowed yourself to be swayed by the biases of certain economists, the press and the wealthy: free trade was the new sliced toast. And now, having been swayed but not wanting to admit that, you see dismiss the evidence that free trade is a poor substitute for fair trade as some weird radical left argument, driven mostly by the ignorati who don't have your elite education and the wisdom from holding the center.

Everything in moderation. Including moderation. Defining yourself to be of the center is an extremist position.

[Jim S]

Of course the part of your post that I find completely unbelievable is any part of the right believing in adequate social safety nets. They only want safety nets that fit in with their pre-conceived notions that there are enough jobs for everyone that pay enough to make it in our society.

[wml]

"world peace, world prosperity, equality of opportunity, safety nets"

Why would someone who was right of center care about these four items?

If you had a set of policies that made the USA secure (even if it had parts of the world in flames), USA prosperous (even if parts of the world were in dire poverty), and made the top 70% of the US population wealthy, why would center-right oppose such a policy? Now you might argue on practical grounds that USA security depends on universal world peace, USA prosperity on world prosperity, and so forth. But that's an empirical question, and would have to be backed up with proof and could be in some circumstances false.

[Bruce Wilder]

I look at Volokh Conspiracy every day, because I think I should look at right-wing views on a regular basis.

I am always grateful to see a post by Eugene Volokh, a conservative by any estimation, but a true, reality-based one. When EV does media criticism, his targets are different generally, from Brad DeLong, but the complaint is basically the same: a departure from careful reporting of the truth.

But, I am also reminded, by numerous comments and not a few posts by other bloggers on the VC site, that a large part of the Right-wing is not only viciously partisan, pathologically devoid of empathy, but, also, profoundly delusional. Their reprehensible worldview is supported by an imaginary factual world of their own making.

You cannot compromise with the insane and hope to come out with anything, but insanity.

The Republican Party, today, stands four-square for torture, national bankruptcy, barely limited business and political corruption, and perpetual war.

I don't know, exactly, what the Democratic Party stands for, but it is certainly not those four things. We have a two party system, and it is the duty of the sane to make the Democratic Party work.

[minerva]

"The aim of governance, I think, is to achieve a rough consensus among the reality-based technocrats and then to frame the issues in a way that attracts the ideologues on one (or, ideally, both) wings in order to create an effective governing coalition."

Wow. Really? Government of the technocrats, by the technocrats and for the technocrats!

(No offense. I'm an admirer of yours. But I couldn't help but be struck by that sentence.)

[Emma Anne]

I think Krugman is right, for this reason: the right will never come back to the reality based world prepared to negotiate in good faith until they are thoroughly defeated. Temporary set backs don't work. They go off and lick their wounds and come back even crazier and more stubborn than before. Cf Carter and Clinton. We have to change things in a fundamental way before this dynamic is broken. More populist than technocrat, I'm afraid.

[A. Zarkov]

A likely candidate for the failure of wages to keep up with inflation and to reflect productivity gains is the diminished power of labor unions. Even the non-union membership at a company benefits from union bargaining. For example Boeing attempted to cut back the medical benefits for the engineers but not the machinists. They got an engineering-staff strike. Even the normally submissive engineers were pushed too far. How can the federal government strengthen unions? Better policies and rules from the Department of Labor would help. New laws would help. Let’s be specific for a change.

The non-immigrant visa program has hurt American tech workers and other professionals. Congress can eliminate or curtail this program. That would help the middle class. Don’t believe the industry and government propaganda about H1-B, it hurts Americans. At the low end of the wage spectrum, we also have a problem. Bringing in hordes of unskilled immigrants has hurt the Americans who have to compete with them. I know various economists claim they can’t see any effect. Try harder guys. Don’t use methods with such high Type II errors and perhaps you will find those effects.

Now here’s a conundrum for those who want stronger unions, but support immigration. What happens when the new stronger bolder unions lobby Congress to curtail immigration? What happens when unions tell management no H1-Bs or a strike?

[jerry]

In the early 80s, starting as an intern, and then after graduation, I worked for Honeywell in West Covina, CA. We of course, had a local HR department, and they were situated near the lobby. Prospective employees could wander in off the street, find how what jobs were available and apply in person. The local HR department could vet the application then and there and would even call the hiring manager on the spot.

Fast forward 25 years. I move to Maricopa County where Honeywell has thousands of employees in dozens of divisions. I need a job, and would like to apply in person. But Honeywell no longer has a local HR department or any ability to interview walk-ins. All resumes must be submitted via computer to Minneapolis, where it is scanned, and applied against various queries and if matched, forwarded by computer to the managers. Same for Raytheon and Lockheed.

There is no way to apply by walking in off the street. There is no value in driving to a city and walking to the various employers.

And....

All of these employers complain they cannot find good help, and so it's very important that we have an H1-B Visa program so that they can hire qualified employees.

Screw that shit. Just like any school that accepts federal funds must follow Title IX, it should be the case that any employer that seeks an H1-B visa must follow a federal policy that mandates that amongst the minimum, each location must have an ability to handle applicants from off the street, and that ability must include the ability to have local managers scan the application while the individual waits.

But I know, that that is a left left lefty position.

[me]

What is that? Unions? Servants organizing? Conspiring against their rightful masters? Return 101st Airbourne back home now!

[John Owens]

Brad: "...arguing with center-right reality-based technocrats about whether it is center-left or center-right policies that have the best odds of moving us toward goals that we all share--world peace, world prosperity, equality of opportunity, safety nets, long and happy lifespans, rapid scientific and technological progress, and personal safety."

I don't know about that. I've been thinking up a post on this subject I'll probably write up soon. I think a little bit of what's gone crazy in this country is that people are confusing means and ends. For instance, I would say that a free market is good because, ideally, it's a means to achieve the above ends. But more and more, people seem to be thinking that the free market is an end in and of itself, which must be promoted even at the expense of the above goals (e.g., in cases of market failure). I've only got one other good example in mind so far, but I'm pretty sure there must be others out there. Hmm, as a matter of fact, another occurred to me just now while writing this. That's three now....

On the last point, of your mild disagreement with Krugman, I think I'd have to come down on Krugman's side, along with just about everyone else here in comments, it seems. But then, a majority is just a majority, and not necessarily in the right.

[save the rustbelt]

The center-right reality-based GOP will not have any leverage until the Bushites and Rove-ites and the wing nut fringe is sent packing.

Otherwise, you get the Club for Growth and Larry Kudlow - and the WSJ editorial page.

[J Bean]

When I was a freshman in college -- a good many years ago -- my parents persuaded me to take a "business" class because they believed that was the only route to gainful employment (fortunately, I stubbornly went off and studied engineering despite my gender discrepancy). I only remember one thing from that class and that was the first day. The prof identified himself as a Republican and pro-business and said that he didn't like unions but felt that they were a sort of necessary evil that acted as a counter balance to large corporations. I don't believe that there are any of those reasonable Republicans left.

[walkingtheline]

I have heard the center-right reality-based technocrats singing each to each
I do not think that they will sing to me

[billy]

"Is DeLong right to think she'd be more moved by tax policy proposals than populism?"

Rauchway is just one of an increasing number of American commentators who have opted to reverse centuries of common usage and employ the feminine personal pronoun as default. Is there any particularly good reason for doing so?
(sorry for the digression)

[xenos]

"He may well be right."

Understatemnt of the year.

[Randolph Fritz]

"[...]I do think that there is hope that they will come to their senses[...]"

Historically, I'd have to say that it has not happenned in previous instances--the radicals jettison the moderates as soon as the radicals gain the upper hand.

[Jon Fernquest]

Jerry: "Defining yourself to be of the center is an extremist position."

Deciding issues on their merit? How could this be extremist?

Being on the left or right compels you, out of solidarity, to already have your mind made up on many issues.

Having just read "The Right Nation", probably several years too late, allow me to speculate that the next **think tanks** will come from America's own universities like UC Berkeley. Technology now allows **scholars in academia to be public intellectuals** and educate the world.

Imagine a meeting at a university in Seoul, South Korea, let's say, where the Korean staff tell all the foreign teachers that they will all be replaced in the near future by satellite transmissions from a classroom at Stanford. The students at XYZ university in South Korea will finally get a real education. This is a little discouraging to be sure, but I understand where they are coming from. Slowly, but surely we are moving in this direction.

I'm sure a lot of liberal republicans in the 1950s, including Dwight Eisenhower himself would have agreed with Professor DeLong:

"I am pragmatically interested in government policies that work...that have the best odds of moving us toward goals that we all share--world peace, world prosperity, equality of opportunity, safety nets, long and happy lifespans, rapid scientific and technological progress, and personal safety."

[Blissex]

«free trade was the new sliced toast.»

But that is actually true: that there are dozens of millions of desperate asians willing to work for low wages to manufacture really cheap stuff for Usians is fantastic. The non trivial problem is the distributional impact.

What simplified theory says is that this should be happening in the USA: asian labor competition reduces all incomes in the USA in roughly the same way, but prices of stuff fall even faster, thus everybody in the USA enjoys higher living standards.

This is not happening because vulgar trade economics arguments somehow ignore the far from mysterious fact that there are large non tradable sectors in the USA, and the actual outcome in the USA goes like this:

* asian labor competition reduces sharply the salaries of a large minority of USA workers.

* the incomes of those not competing with asian labor rise significantly thanks to their improved relative bargaining power (unless they compete indirectly by belonging in the same labor pool as the displaced workers, in which case their incomes still fall, but less so).

* prices of many things fall, but less fast than the salaries of those competiting with asian labor (because some of their income is transferred to those not competing with asian labor), and their standard of living goes down.

* at the same time the standard of living of those not competing with asian labor increases even faster than their incomes thanks to the fall in prices of many things.

Note: then the prices of many things go back up a bit, because foreign demand kicks in after a while as their incomes go up.

[Blissex]

«Historically, I'd have to say that it has not happenned in previous instances--the radicals jettison the moderates as soon as the radicals gain the upper hand.»

I guess that this also refer to the Democrats among the «previous instances».

A lot of the current Republican cultural hegemony may well be due to a backlash against the excesses of the McGovern era and of unions like PATCO. Thanks guys! :-(

[stunster]

The notion that technocrats---economists above all---are without taint, nay, dollops of ideology is itself highly ideological.

I remember David Schweickart, author of Against Capitalism, telling me while sunning ourselves on Varadero beach in Cuba that the reason economists are so addicted to the idea of the benefits of free trade is that it's the one economic doctrine that doesn't appear 'obvious'.

But what could be more obviously ideological than the idea, say, that if GDP grows by 4% (with the richest 10% of the population getting all of the increased income plus a bit more, while the other 90% suffer a fall in income), then the polices that produce that 4% GDP growth 'work better' than alternative policies that only increase GDP by 2%, with the incomes of the richest 10% stagnant (or falling) and all the increase in income being equally distributed among the remaining 90%?

Yet precisely this type of ideological claim dominates the thinking and utterances of today's economics technocracy.

[Cyrus]

A technocrat of any description should be the first to admit that it is easier to govern badly than to govern well, and that unless the government is somehow held accountable for governing well, it is likely to govern badly.

Bush II gets away with governing badly because he is a form of populist: he has a solid core of supporters who, even if they recognize that he governs badly, will not hold him accountable to govern well, because no one else so much as pays lip service to issues they care deeply about.

But if a resurgent economic populist movement were to succeed in electing its candidate, unless the opposition had at least some appeal to this candidate's supporters, that candidate's supporters will be no more able to hold that candidate to good governance.

They only way to get both reform, and good governance, is for the reform issues to be the concern of at least some fraction of both the governing coalition and a credible opposition.

[Blissex]

«I move to Maricopa County where Honeywell has thousands of employees in dozens of divisions. I need a job, and would like to apply in person. But Honeywell no longer has a local HR department or any ability to interview walk-ins. All resumes must be submitted via computer to Minneapolis, where it is scanned, and applied against various queries and if matched, forwarded by computer to the managers.»

Most probably if you went to Bangalore or Shenzen, you could walk in any lobby and they would jump on you...

I suspect that the change you describe is due to two factors:

* That large companies are in effect Soviet ministates, where bureaucracy and the message of the Great Leader trump effectiveness (no surprise that so many have been found to cook the books or to disappear). This means that such organizations tend to be command-and-control and formulaic: if the policy is ''computerize'', then it is applied whether or not it makes sense.

* But in this case perversely is may make sense precisely because it does not. Reread what you wrote: you are saying that in 1980 Honeywell was making it easy to get a job, and in 2005 it is making it hard. Do you think that even delusionary Great Leaders don't realize the consequences? Of course they do. What this tells me is that Honeywell in 1980 was keen to hire in the USA, in 2005 it can't be bothered, except to go through the motions to be able to claim it needs more H1Bs.

As to companies discouraging things by making them clumsy and inefficient, it reminds me of a very large oil company that had decided to do a spending freeze this way: all purchase orders (and I mean all) to be signed off by the CFO, who then became mysteriously always busy in some meeting. Note that this laughable obstructionist move was entirely deliberate. One of the guys there told me that they could put up a drilling platform in Nigeria in 3 months (also because the VP of E&P could summon the CFO to get the purchase order signed on the spot), but it took 6 months to get approval to buy a pencil sharpener. :-)

«But Honeywell no longer has a local HR department [ ... ] All resumes must be submitted via computer to Minneapolis, [ ... ] forwarded by computer to the managers.»

This also points out that there has also been a significant shift in another aspect, which is very important but underestimated.

It used to be that by and large hiring decisions were made by HR, with the advice of line managers. HR's incentive is to hire good people who will stay with the company and perform well, because that reflects well on them.

But currently hiring decisions are made by managers or even worse, teams, and HR at most vets the inputs.

The incentives of managers are generally to hire the worst candidate they can get away with, and one that hopefully won't stay around long. For teams, this gets much worse, because for most team members the ideal coworker is one that ''fits in'', which means that he is both dumber than any existing team member and docile. As Barbara Ehrenreich reports:

http://www.realchangenews.org/archive3/2005_09_28/baitandswitch.html
«RC: You talk in your book about how being a desirable white-collar worker often depends upon exhibiting a sort of cheerful docility at all times. [ ... ]
Ehrenreich: [ ... ] But one of the things that really struck me is that it is more straightforward in the blue-collar world. When you’re hired to be a waitress, you get the food to the table or you don’t. In the white-collar world, there seems to be less emphasis on “What can you do?” and more on “Are you likeable?” Are you somebody other people “want on their team”? I don’t get it. Too many mind games.»

No, not mind games: just insiders protecting their vesting in their career in Soviet style big corporate bureaucracies.

This happens also at higher levels in the company; as a famous investor said, rarely do CEOs appoint as successors people who outshine them. I remember also a story about IBM, where many years ago the PC EMEA division was going badly, and a troubleshooter was sent to fix it. In an interview he said that the problem was: ''first raters have no problem hiring other first raters; but if second raters end up in charge, things are still not too bad, except that second raters only hire third raters to be sure, and it is when the second raters retire and the third raters run the company that the big problems start''.

[Cranky Observer]

> the surrender of the reality-based
> wing of the Republican policy
> community to the gang of Republican
> political spivs who currently hold the
> levers of power,

I would honestly and non-snarkily be curious to see some evidence that any realty-based non-Radical Republicans still exist, and particularly if they do any evidence that they will have any influence over the overall Republican/Radical party for the next generation (pace Norquist).

If HW Bush doesn't have any influence over the current Radical Republicans, and it appears now that he does not, who in heck is the authority figure that can bring them to heel? McCain and Powell are both out.

Cranky

[Blissex]

«A likely candidate for the failure of wages to keep up with inflation and to reflect productivity gains is the diminished power of labor unions.»

I find that plausible but I would like to my long list of small things that have changed the climate against labor a psychological factor: the end of the draft. The military is a great class mixer, when everybody is drafted, and it results in creating a ''union of the citizens''. During service the rich learn that the poor are not all exploitative parasitic criminals, and the poor discover that many of the rich are not just stuck up bitches. :-) The great postwar boom and consensus in many countries was largely one done by people who had served together, and gotten to know each other and the value of acting as a group.

«Even the non-union membership at a company benefits from union bargaining. [ ... Boeing ... ]»

But please everybody: while the agency shop is an entirely reasonable idea, the union shop is a phenomenally bad idea for everybody except union bosses.

[Blissex]

«If HW Bush doesn't have any influence over the current Radical Republicans,»

Understatement of the decade! :-) The first Bush is considered a traitor by the Republicans because he did raise taxes. Let's hear from Norquist about taxes and the Republicans...

http://WWW.ATR.org/content/html/2005/oct/101505spch-dllslcr.html
«We have branded the Republican Party at the national level as the party that will not raise your taxes, and we have succeeded wars, recessions, scandals, all sorts of things and the Republican Party has maintained its position in the House, and strengthened, in the House and the Senate.»
«Since the Republicans took the House, Senate, and presidency, we’ve had a tax cut each of the years that Bush has been president. Since 1990, when there was a minor lapse on this subject, there’s not been a single Republican in Washington, DC that’s voted for a tax increase. There’s some who vote against tax cuts, who we consider them Bolsheviks, but no Republican has voted for a tax increase.»
«Republican elected officials who vote for tax increases are rat heads in a coke bottle. They damage the Republican brand. This is not a victimless crime: oh Fred’s over in the corner raising taxes, but that’s Fred. No! No! Small children everywhere get discouraged if they see Republicans raising taxes because it confuses them, and they don’t know what it means to be a Republican.»
«There is, however, a broad band across the country that are Lincoln Republicans. And by this, I mean, from Long Island to New Jersey to Pennsylvania, I may get these in the wrong order, but Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. Okay. They think they are Republicans because they are for the union and are against slavery. And they’ve been coasting: they raise taxes, they spend money. They missed the Reagan revolution. Okay. They failed to notice that being against slavery and for the union is now more or less a consensus issue even among Democrats.»

[bakho]

Let us not forget history. We only got to the point in the US where technocrats could discuss distribution of wealth issues after some pretty violent labor strikes. My history book tells of Pinkerton agents with shotguns shooting striking miners and miners fighting back by dynamiting mines and Pinkerton agents during the mine wars. My history book tells of auto worker strikes that resulted in people dying. My history book tells of a Great Depression and unemployment so high that the wealthy decided to accomodate many labor demands to head off socialism or even communism. The FDR New Deal was more a program to protect capitalism from itself than a capitulation to labor.

That history is past. Having calmed the labor movement for a couple of generations, the wealthy are bulldozing the children who do not understand resistance. These issues will not be resolved by polite debates among technocrats.

Face it, the wealthy did not become wealthy and remain wealthy by polite negotiation and playing nice. They are wealthy because they are competitive and will greedily grab anything that the rest of us refuse to fight for. There is no polite way to negotiate this. The wealthy will push their greed until they once again overreach and are met once again with an impassioned opposition. The Republican Party has been bought by K-Street, lock stock and barrel. Negotiation is not possible.

[John Faughnan]

I suspect Paul is thinking of Theodore Roosevelt as the archetypal 'smart populist'. I confess I'm in Paul's camp here, but I really have NO idea what the average American voter thinks or how they make their decisions.

In terms of the current slate of candidates, he might be thinking Al Gore or John Edwards. I'd be keen on either of them.

[jerry]

"It used to be that by and large hiring decisions were made by HR, with the advice of line managers. HR's incentive is to hire good people who will stay with the company and perform well, because that reflects well on them.

But currently hiring decisions are made by managers or even worse, teams, and HR at most vets the inputs."

I think you have it completely wrong. In the early 80s, HR was there to recognize good candidates quickly and make sure their resumes got to the most appropriate people in the company. Hiring decisions were made then as now by the hiring managers.

Today's HR department is not there to make sure resumes get to the most relevant projects at the local facility, but instead are there to make sure that resumes are appropriately entered into the job database. There is no human matching of resume to appropriate project. Queries are applied to each resume and if there appears to be a match, than that resume is forwarded to the hiring manager.

There are 25,000,000+ google hits for:
http://www.google.com/search?q=resume+keyword+writing

And the first page is predominantly about how to write your resume so that it scans well and has the right keywords.

This process introduced way too many false negatives.

In the past, I might hear that Honeywell had won some contract and walk in the door to ask about that contract. The local sentient HR department would talk to me, and read the resume and send it to the right managers for that project as well as other more hidden projects. The local sentient HR department would even say, "we have to hire you somewhere" and send it to someone that would create a job.

The centralized bureaucracy and barriers that HR and IT have created to wonderfully for the HR Head and the IT Head. Their resumes now get to read: Implemented SCNF00XXX resume scanning system, reads/distributes 1,000,000 resumes. Cost of project of $50,000,000. But no one is measuring if their hiring process is better or worse in terms of finding the good people. But we know that they complain that they cannot find good people which is why they need their H1-B visas.

"But please everybody: while the agency shop is an entirely reasonable idea, the union shop is a phenomenally bad idea for everybody except union bosses."

I work as an engineer at a large manufacturing company, and I am very grateful for the power of our union members. I suspect my job is safer (as in won't kill me) and my health benefits are much greater that they would be if we didn't have unionized employees.

I see far more waste created for the company by bad management, poorly thought out resume building projects, in ability to admit mistakes and change direction, and lawer drive policies. None of that is union related. All of that is fixable by good management.

"The incentives of managers are generally to hire the worst candidate they can get away with, and one that hopefully won't stay around long."

Have you ever had a job or tried to hire someone for a job? It doesn't seem like it.

Barbara Ehrenreich is correct about mind games in the hiring process. But whether it is Microsoft's/Google's puzzle interviews, or even my company's very structured lawyer driven interviews, the first question is always: is the candidate qualified?

It is only after making sure the candidate can do the job that the other touchy feely questions come into play.

Our hiring process is hindered by lawyers that insist that for any job j, there exists a universe of questions Q, the size of that universe is small, and that for all candidates c for job j, each candidate must be asked every single question q in universe Q. What this means is that thanks to our lawyers, it is much more difficult if not impossible to drill down into a candidates actual abilities. That's not managers or team members doing this. That's the doing of our corporate lawyers, and our HR department.

[jerry]

One small followup to an overly long post:

"The incentives of managers are generally to hire the worst candidate they can get away with, and one that hopefully won't stay around long. For teams, this gets much worse, because for most team members the ideal coworker is one that ''fits in'', which means that he is both dumber than any existing team member and docile."

Again, this is completely crazy nonsense.

Managers are incented by meeting their deadlines. Team-members have to do that work and have the same deadlines.

No one is incented by hiring some nice dumb guy who will fit in.

The fitting in questions only occur AFTER making sure the candidate is the best there is. And they are there not to find some dumb guy, but to make sure that the incredibly smart guy that you want to hire is not a prima-donna.

[Blissex]

«the first question is always: is the candidate qualified?»

Usually this is more correctly phrased as ''is the candidate the least qualified candidate that can still do the job, and thus does not threaten the career path of his longer vested coworkers or manager?''.

"The incentives of managers are generally to hire the worst candidate they can get away with, and one that hopefully won't stay around long. For teams, this gets much worse, because for most team members the ideal coworker is one that ''fits in'', which means that he is both dumber than any existing team member and docile."
«Again, this is completely crazy nonsense.
Managers are incented by meeting their deadlines.»

Managers get paltry bonuses in the unlikely event that project deadlines are met. That's why they get the least qualified candidate that can still do the job. But official bonuses are a small thing compared to the value of the vesting in the career.

«Team-members have to do that work and have the same deadlines.»

Sure, and «that work» includes better and worse tasks, and hiring the least qualified that can still do the job and are the most docile as coworkers means that the longer vested team members can dump the worse stuff on the newcomer. Ever hear of ''I paid my dues''? :-)

And deadlines and projects come and ago and most fail.

Usually managers and team members are far more deeply vested in their careers (if any) than in the success of any particular project. Business rarely design well the mix of explicit and implicit incentives that they give to employees. Hey, boards rarely get that mix right for CEOs :-).

«No one is incented by hiring some nice dumb guy who will fit in.»

Not explicitly, but people in dilbertian organizations figure out pretty well which side their implicit bread is buttered on.

«The fitting in questions only occur AFTER making sure the candidate is the best there is.»

After making sure that the candidate is the least qualified one that can still do the job. Workplaces are dominance hierarchies much more than economic organizations.

«And they are there not to find some dumb guy, but to make sure that the incredibly smart guy that you want to hire is not a prima-donna.»

And the questions are to make sure that the guy they are going to hire is not so smart or ambitious that he is any threat to the career of the existing team members or his manager, and is a walk-over who is prepared to do the work that people with longer seniority of service find tedious.

Why do you think ageism exists and past a certain age people only get hired as contractors? Or is this a fantasy, because managers and team members are happy to risk their careers by hiring people who are older, more experienced, capable and cheaper than themselves, purely for the sake of project success? :-)

SIDE NOTE: I reckon that a lot of ageism would disappear if the pretence of unfailing meritocracy were dropped and service seniority were made a formal, rather than a conventional, aspect of firing and promotion decisions. So that younger workers and managers felt they could manager and work with older employees without undue risk.

Sure, there are business where results drive employee and manager behaviour, and I have been fortunate to work at some of these, but as a rule large companies (and many small companies) are more driven by politics than results :-).

As to small companies, many are managed by the owner, and if the owner does the hiring, then it is far more likely that the best candidate gets hired. The owner does not need to worry about a subordinate being a threat to his career; he owns the place.

Important qualification: I am talking here of ''cost-centre'' jobs, where it is difficult to evaluate contribution of individuals and thus credentialism etc. matter. For people who directly generate revenue, the bottom line matters, not whether they are docile or creeps or have four arms or are over 45...

[zen_less]

If you really believe what you are writing, you are not very "reality-based." The reality is that the world is populated (and run) by people with extreme disagreements, not all of whom share your lofty goals. In the midst of this the "sensible middle" you postulate either doesn't exist or is so ineffectual that no one listens to it (them). Further, even intelligent people and "technocrats" can have extreme, non-sensible ideas and not realize it (see Edward Teller). It is fine to have a set goals you aspire to, but rather than taking the neo-Leninist position that there is an intellectual fringe that knows better than everyone else, maybe you should listen to what the extreme elements are saying and figure out how to either counter their arguments or adapt them so that they are working towards your goals. Because the extremists are not just going to realize your superior wisdom and let you take over. A little reality check for you.

[Michael Cain]

"They think they are Republicans because they are for the union and are against slavery. And they’ve been coasting: they raise taxes, they spend money. They missed the Reagan revolution."

Of course, Grover is himself out of touch with reality. With minor exceptions under Reagan, the Republicans have not reduced the size of government. Nor are they likely to, as the Republican politicians who must get elected are well aware that US voters are strongly in favor of the benefits of a modest social democracy; that should the Republicans go so far as to kill Social Security, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or (at the state level) public institutes of higher education, the voters would show them quickly to the door.

Too many US voters also believe in free lunches, and are too quick to grab at the promise that those Republican politicians implicitly make: you can have the benefits but there's no need to pay for them.

[SorrowPity]

Brad,

Let me reach out from the reality based center right. For me too this is true:

"My natural home is in the bipartisan center, arguing with center-right reality-based technocrats about whether it is center-left or center-right policies that have the best odds of moving us toward goals that we all share--world peace, world prosperity, equality of opportunity, safety nets, long and happy lifespans, rapid scientific and technological progress, and personal safety."

My only modifications would be that I would take the other side of the left-right argument and that I would add the maximal feasible extension of human freedom and liberties to the list.

I would not presume to shape or structure or guide the political process. The role of the responsible public intellectual is to sharpen and clarify issues, to build observation posts, clear away the underbrush, and then put forward some kind of coherent vision. Politics has its own horrible beauty but it is certain that the political world does not wait on the technocrat in any way; so there will be a lot of luck involved any time a good idea takes political root. The only reason to play such a fool's game is that the stakes are so high. We must try.

Now, with that said, I would like to address a concern that I have: many of your commenters are foaming at the mouth.

For instance:

“‘world peace, world prosperity, equality of opportunity, safety nets' Why would someone who was right of center care about these four items? If you had a set of policies that made the USA secure (even if it had parts of the world in flames), USA prosperous (even if parts of the world were in dire poverty), and made the top 70% of the US population wealthy, why would center-right oppose such a policy?"

- JimS

"But, I am also reminded, by numerous comments and not a few posts by other bloggers on the VC site, that a large part of the Right-wing is not only viciously partisan, pathologically devoid of empathy, but, also, profoundly delusional. Their reprehensible worldview is supported by an imaginary factual world of their own making.

You cannot compromise with the insane and hope to come out with anything, but insanity.

The Republican Party, today, stands four-square for torture, national bankruptcy, barely limited business and political corruption, and perpetual war"

- Bruce Wilder

Well, JimS, of course I am for the four aims above. I simply believe, with very good evidence on my side, that the best way to get to global peace, prosperity, equality of opportunity, and a global safety net; is to foster globalization of free markets (yes, JimS, capitalism). I'm sure that Brad would agree that we are looking for sustainable long term prosperity and peace. The evidence of our lifetime is that free men and free markets are the best approach. I'm delighted with the globalization and free trade assisted growth of China and India. I believe that poverty in Africa will be ameliorated within fifty to one hundred years because the combined future prosperity of China, India, the Pacific Rim, and the US will permit enough resources to be dedicated to the problem to solve it. In the long term, globalization will lower poverty worldwide, not just in Asia. By the way, the suggestion that I, as a center right person, must not care whatsoever about the fate of anyone outside of the US is simply a gratuitous and ignorant insult.

Bruce, I have my strong differences with and disappointments in the Republican Party but it does not "stand four-square for torture, national bankruptcy, barely limited business and political corruption, and perpetual war". I agree with you completely that: "You cannot compromise with the insane and hope to come out with anything, but insanity." I guess our difference is this: From my point of view I have rarely seen even a commenter on Volokh who is even 20% as "viciously partisan, pathologically devoid of empathy, but, also, profoundly delusional" as you.

Bruce, here's a further irony. I'm a center right Republican swing voter in the extremely tight and critical Jim Gerlach district in the Philadelphia suburbs. I'm strongly tempted to vote for the Democratic challenger Lois Murphy in November. I know Lois and I'm sure that she would be a "better" Representative than Gerlach. If I don't vote for her it will be because of all the irrational extremists like you (Bruce) and JimS; because your kind of “thinking“ has way too much influence within the Democratic Party.

Brad, I'm pretty sure that the populism thing won't work because the general American public doesn't like and is even afraid of the Bruce's of this world. However, even if it did work, would you really want to be the technocratic lap dog of these delusional commissar wannabes?

[Cranky Observer]

> Bruce, I have my strong differences
> with and disappointments in the
> Republican Party but it does not "stand
> four-square for torture, national
> bankruptcy, barely limited business and
> political corruption, and perpetual war".

Can you help me understand the years 2001-2006 then? Gitmo, Enron (note: zero prosecutions in the $2 billion California energy fraud that was /caught on tape/), the Bankruptcy Bill, of course Iraq, and the fermenting attack on Iraq?

Unless you are going to argue that those who have carried out those policies are not "real Republicans", but as noted above I disagree: they are.

Cranky

[Metatone]

Hey SorrowPity,

Just to clarify your position as a member of the sensible centre-right:

What are your positions on Guantanomo? Abu Ghraib? Cheney's statement that "deficits don't matter"?

[Michael Cain]

"Why do you think ageism exists and past a certain age people only get hired as contractors?"

An exception to this, and one I seem to have backed into taking advantage of, is state government. The average age of a new hire by the state of Colorado is 47. It is one of the few employers that I know of in the state where new employees have the option of signing up for a defined-benefit pension plan. And you can start at age 47 and retire at age 65 with a substantial monthly benefit, with an annual COLA (the total benefit is reduced somewhat if you are also drawing Social Security). The salaries are not competitive with the private sector, but the employment is stable and agencies are eager to hire experienced, talented people.

I admit that I may be an exception rather than the rule. After I was caught on the wrong side of a corporate acquisition, I found that I was largely unemployable in my former field -- in addition to the ageism thing, I was a generalist and an "individual contributor" rather than a specialist or a manager. I'll be using my skills somewhat differently, but some of my experience will still be valuable. And the only issue about my age that came up was the question "Can you cope with having bosses (state legislators in this case) that are younger than you?"

[KevinA]

People like you are hopelessly naive. Please, stop it.

[Blissex]

«The average age of a new hire by the state of Colorado is 47. It is one of the few employers that I know of in the state where new employees have the option of signing up for a defined-benefit pension plan. And you can start at age 47 and retire at age 65 with a substantial monthly benefit, with an annual COLA (the total benefit is reduced somewhat if you are also drawing Social Security). The salaries are not competitive with the private sector, but the employment is stable and agencies are eager to hire experienced, talented people.»

Same in Europe, but in Europe as a rule those kind of jobs are reserved for friends of friends and friends of politicians, and it is really quite difficult to get one without knowing someone who knows someone.

[Blissex]

«The Republican Party, today, stands four-square for torture, national bankruptcy, barely limited business and political corruption, and perpetual war"»

Because the Democrats don't? On which points?

Blanket authorizations for torture and perpetual war have been voted for by overwhelming bipartisan majorities and both are exceptionally popular with very worried voters (for whatever reason).

BTW as to torture the guy who has done most about it is McCain, a Republican, but IIRC the bill only passed because it contained loopholes. I hope that I remember wrong. And wasn't there a poll saying that 30-40% of voters would like to make muslisms wear an identifying mark, ''because you can never be too safe''?

Business corruption seems to be equally popular with both parties, after all they both have business constituencies and neither seems terribly in a hurry to cause them trouble. Political corruption is nothing new or notable, even if the systematic way many Republicans go about it (the name ''K Street Project'' is telling) makes a not necessarily welcome difference.

There may be a significant difference on national bankruptcy; republicans seem to favor higher spending with tax cuts, democrats higher spending without tax cuts, which seems indeed more responsible.

But then I'd like to point out that both Republicans and Democrats have voted overwhelmingly to finance the wars entirely with debt...

And they do all this because there is some sort of national consensus among voters.

Time to requote the impressions of the FT on the ''national security'' situation:

http://DeLong.typePad.com/sdj/2006/06/next_to_our_lib.html#comment-18742283
http://news.FT.com/cms/s/2817d81c-b067-11da-a142-0000779e2340.html
«In other words, the Democrats have found an effective way of neutralising their most persistent electoral liability: they are out-Bushing Mr Bush.
It is easy to see why key Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, have adopted this strategy. It is easy also to see why their Republican counterparts are following suit. As Peter King, the Republican representative for New York, said last week: “We are not going to allow the Democrats get to the right of us on this issue.” This left Mr Bush holding the candle for the left, as it were.»

[citizen k]

Brad:
The Republicans are right, without a solid moral basis, all your technocracy is both bad policy and easily defeated politics. Their moral basis is cheap labor, authoritarian government, crony capitalism, and war. Finding a middle ground with that means, at best, ameliorating some effects temporarily. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenberg (Colbert!) is stupidity, not technocratic excellence.

[Sunflower]

I would no more pretend to trust a "technocrat" to be the diviner of a center than I would trust Kissinger to be an arbiter of realism. I think an underlying theory is that left & right are emotion based and often impractical and therefore not up to the reasoned mein required to govern a diverse and compicated society. My own experience shows that this is a false premise. As another poster noted, the "center" has moved so much that Clinton governed to the right of Nixon. Eisenhower would be so far left now, that he would probably show up on the Bush Homeland Security's No Fly Watch List.

God Help the Republic!

[Jay Rosen]

"...While I am profoundly, profoundly disappointed and disgusted by the surrender of the reality-based wing of the Republican policy community to the gang of Republican political spivs who currently hold the levers of power..."

Where has this "wing" been? What happened to them since 2000? What explains--truly explains--their surrender? Why did they go down so meekly? What delusion did they have? In what does their agony consist today? Where is their stock-taking?

Please, Brad. Let us hear more about your disappointment, and disgust. But also why you think this group could possisbly rise again after the kind of boot-grinding humiliation they've suffered in the modern Republican party.

[andres]

Jay: what neither you nor Brad seem to perceive is that the gap between the reality-based Republican party of yesteryear and today's radicals is actually a generational gap, especially where foreign policy is concerned.

The Past Republicans recognized that there were two important restraining factors to what they could get away with: the power of the USSR in the geopolitical sphere and the power of the Democratic party in domestic politics. Both restraints are gone now: the USSR has fallen of its own corruption, and the Democrats have fallen due to their inability to construct a majority post-civil rights, post-deindustrialization coalition.

And guess what? Those Republicans whose formative years were the late 1980's (e.g. Bush jr. becoming an abstemious, born-again Christian politician in time to do major political work during his father's vice-presidency) when the collapse of both restraints became apparent decided that there was no limit to what they could be allowed to get away with. And so far, they have been right.

And the Old Guard Republicans have subsided without major opposition because in the end, this was after all what they always wanted even if they thought it couldn't be achieved. Remember that this is the party where all the generations (to a man) claim to revere Barry Goldwater, who wanted to nuke the USSR and who had no sympathy for the civil rights movement. Not to mention that though they revile Nixon in public, they've followed Nixon's Southern electoral strategy faithfully since 1980 at least.

The above is why Krugman is so far substantially right about Brad (if Brad's description of Krugman's opinion is accurate). Then again, Krugman was something of a technocrat himself in the 1990's, and only the steadily worsening disaster of the Bush presidency tore the scales off his eyes.

What needs to happen to finally get some real opposition going (as in real civil disobedience, not mild-mannered electioneering) is for Brad and all the other self-described technocrats to realize that the leadership of the Republican party (with an occasional exception like Eisenhower, though many of the people in his cabinet were execrable), across the political spectrum and across the generations, has no redeeming features and has not had any redeeming features at least since the time of Teddy Roosevelt if not earlier. The Republican party today represents a political mindset that needs to be morally discredited from the roots up if the US is to become a respectable, economically independent nation again.

[kevin_r]

Mr. Delong,
I believe you are sincere and are the best of what a center-left technocrat can be. However, it may be that it becoming impossible to actually be a center-left technocrat and for reasons very different from those that others have addressed.
The Internet has transformed the role of the skilled amateur. Interested non-experts now have easy access to knowledge that used to be available only to experts. They also have platforms from which to speak and ways to communicate amongst themselves and with experts open to such interaction. As you do by the very act of having this blog.
This means that the skilled amateur can no longer be ignored. Expert technocrats must either work with skilled amateurs (as you do through this blog) or work against them, work to have their opinions ignored. An example of this would be mainsteam attempts to demonize bloggers per se.
The skillful inclusion of skilled amateurs together with our experts is an emerging crucial issue. (David Brin writes eloquently about this.) I think you are right to fear a populism that would mobilize amateurs (skilled and otherwise) against experts (invariably on behalf of other experts), but would be wrong to extend that fear to populism that would mobilize amateurs on behalf of a rejuvenating alliance between experts and citizen-amateurs. If center-right technocrat experts either explicitly or instintively fight against the entry of skilled amateurs into the discussion, then even center-left technocrats who participate in discussion designed to exclude non-technocrats from the discussion and decision-making will have the objective effect of strengthening the hand of the right. In other words, it may become literally impossible to be a center-left technocrat of the Clinton-era style.

[Oskar Shapley]

"consensus among the reality-based technocrats"

This line of thought assumes that there is an optimal policy, which maximizes social welfare.

There is no such thing. The simplest counter argument is the issue of taxes/social transfers. The optimum for the victims of social transfer would be zero taxes, while its potential beneficiaries would demand more and more.

[Randolph Fritz]

Just btw, some of this is sounds like the astroturf we've been discussing over at the ?nh blog.

Of course, it could just be cluelessness.

[Kimmitt]

"arguing with center-right reality-based technocrats"

This is based on a false premise. As SorrowPity makes beyond clear, there is no spectrum of views, which starts left, goes center, and passes through right, whereby a person who self-identifies as "center-right" might find him or herself more closely aligned with someone who self-identifies as "center-left" than someone who self-identifies as "wingnut psycho."

This is not true. The distance between "center-left" and "center-right" is yards, miles, AUs greater than the distance between "center-right" and "divine right of kings." There are no center-right technocrats. There are people who say that they are center-right technocrats, but when presented with warrantless wiretapping, torture as US policy, and indefinite detention of US citizens without charges find themselves closer to these positions than to the notion that unions are, on the whole, probably a good thing. And then they pen long, thoughtful screeds about how their convictions are so shallowly held that the existence of partisans on the other side of their fence is what is keeping them from voting Democratic.

So, SorrowPity: Since my opinion is apparently so important to you, I hereby release you to vote for the guy who will lower your current marginal tax rate, no matter what other policies he or she may espouse. Because when it comes right down to it, that's all that matters to people like you, and I wish y'all would just admit it.

[Kimmitt]

Blissex: I would be interested in your citations for the "overwhelming bipartisan majorities" voting for authorizations for:

1) War
2) Torture
3) Financing the war through debt

In terms of the AUMF, I see:

YEAS: 215 Republican, 81 Democratic
NAYS: 6 Republican, 126 Democratic.

I have no idea what you are referring to in terms of torture.

In terms of the Iraq War, was not Senator Kerry excoriated for his decision to vote against debt financing for the war?

[Kimmitt]

Apologies; I left out the Senate side of the AUMF:

YEAS: 29 Democratic, 48 Republican
NAYS: 22 Democratic*, 1 Republican

*Includes Jim Jeffords

It is absurd to pretend that these numbers denote insignificant differences in Party; had the vote been taken with only Democrats, the resolution would not have passed Congress.

[jerry]

Using a web chi square calculator:
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc/webtools/web_chi.html

If the calculator is correct, if I used it properly,

AUMF Dems Repub Total
Yays 29 48 77
Nays 22 1 23
Total 51 49 100

Degrees of freedom: 1
Chi-square = 23.8317574347639
p is less than or equal to 0.001.
The distribution is significant.

[jerry]

aumf dems thugs Total
yays 81 215 296
nays 126 6 132
Total 207 221 428

Degrees of freedom: 1
Chi-square = 169.476460775693
p is less than or equal to 0.001.
The distribution is significant.

[theCoach]

Brad,
I think you owe it to us where you would classify someone like Mankiw, the head of GWB's Council of Economic Advisors.

If he is the type of person you would like to work with, it seems odd to find fault with the current situation, as it is exactly what you are hoping for.

[Kevin Hayden]

The first aim should always be to recruit candidates who speak like a populist. Most technocrats don't and America's electoral history at the national level is littered with the carcasses of speakers of intellectualese.

And frankly, I think part of the problem is that intellectuals don't get out more. Many bide their time in urban environments or within compatible regions and they simply don't recognize massive areas of the country where stupidism is the common condition and those who can do the jes'-folks talk with average commonsense are crowned king. (North Mississippi Delta country, large swaths of rural Georgia/Kansas/Idaho, etc.)

Obsessive taxcutters magnify the problem as their first victims are usually the public schools. Without going all conspiracy theorist, I'm sure the thought has crossed the minds of many a conservative that there's hay to be made by keeping the iggerants iggerant.

Clinton recently summed it up best by noting that Republicans today have a single goal, to consolidate power and wealth. All their policy prescriptions work towards that goal. And when I began viewing them that way, their formerly inexplicable decisions - from estate tax cuts to neocon bullyboy foreign policies - suddenly made sense.

In my opinion, the last two Democratic presidents were just right of center and their nod to the left was only in matters of civil or human rights. The mistake of the party was first to demonize the Left, then to codify their marginalization with DLC policies as gospel.

There's only two ways to keep the middle in the middle; either eliminate BOTH the Left and Rightist extremes, or keep them both active, so they maintain a balance. The DLC approach caused the dispersal of half that balance while the GOP was catering to its extremists, empowering them.

The analogy I like to use is to recognize that early on, Martin Luther King, Jr. was considered the extreme. But when Malcolm X entered the spotlight, King began being perceived as the moderate. So Malcolm was critical to King's success.

Without a similar construct, once the semi-populist speakers like Jerry Brown and Jesse Jackson stepped aside from presidential campaigns, the Left had no place to seek refuge except to choose Nader, the quirky Kucinich, or to cease voting in disgust. And the result was that a true centrist like Howard Dean was cast by the Rightists and the media as the wacky McGovern redux, simply because of his sensible stance against one ill-conceived war.

So I'd advise (1) restoring the leftwing to full health, (2) recruiting presidential candidates who are fluent either in motivational-speak (JFK) or in common-folk-speak (Fred Harris, John Edwards and even Ned Lamont are reasonably close examples), and (3) while populism is the campaign strategy and technocracy the governing strategy, toss more economic populist bones to the Left and the middle class, just as Bush has done to the Rightists and extremely wealthy.

[billmon]

"Thus, in his view, the best road forward to (a) make the Democratic coalition politically dominant through aggressive populism, and then (b) to argue for pragmatic reality-based technocratic rather than idealistic fantasy-based ideological policies within the Democratic coalition.

"He may well be right."

Well, Krugman WOULD be right if left populism were still a viable political program in an era of globalized free markets and xenophobic cultural backlash. But it's not.

On the other hand, "center-right reality-based technocrat" has become a multiple contradiction in terms.

So it looks like the modern politial dialectic really is the "center-left reality-based technocrats" versus the howling hordes of right-wing populism.

But the real problem isn't that the howling hordes have populism on their side. It's that they have populism AND the backing of the moneyed elites.

As always, that's the fascist sweet spot.

If the moneyed elites were to switch sides, a balance of power might be possible -- reality and money versus populist xenophobia. But our Sunbelt New Class needs to season for a couple more generations before that can become possible.

Maybe the empire can get by on sheer inertia until then. But I'm not counting on it.

[allbetsareoff]

Surprised it took so long for John Edwards' name to come up. He's the most articulate and widely recognized politician with a populist message, and hasn't "niched" himself ideologically or regionally. He comes by plain-folks talk naturally, having been reared by a couple of them, and could be a more persuasive blue-collar JFK than Clinton was.

[theBhc]

"I do think that there is hope that they will come to their senses and that building pragmatic technocratic policy coalitions from the center outward will be possible and is our best chance."

You really haven't been paying attention, have you?

[thibaud]

Keep it simple, brad. Populism like any movement succeeds when it identifies one overriding issue that is a source of pain for a large, and largely voiceless, esgment of the population that's not adequately represented by either party. For Americans across the spectrum, be they small self-employed businessmen or employees of old economy manufacturing dinosaurs or the 40% or so of American adults who are so alienated from the political process that they never vote, that issue is secure access to affordable, quality health insurance.

We should propose a single-payor plan modeled on the huge successes of the VA system. Elevate that message and that issue above other domestic issues, and reinforce it again and again. Simple, bold, uncompromising.

[thibaud]

Ideological coherence is less important than simplicity and projecting an image of no-BS concern for the little guy.

It's obvious by now to nearly everyone that Bush's isn't pro-market, he's just pro-business. Specifically, pet lobbies such as energy, big pharma, the baby bells, the insurance lobby etc. Nothing underscores his hypocrisy better than the defense of our psuedo-free market health care system that creates huge inefficiencies, esp in admin and billing, as a way of ensuring profits for payors while causing grief and increased expense to everyone else.

As bad as Bush is, few people view the Dems as having anything meaningful to offer to working families. Minimum wage legislation is good, necessary-- and trivial, and everyone knows it. American workers and their families have received more benefit from interest rates, cheap consumer credit and efficient big retailers offering cheap Asian-made stuff than from all of the economic support policies offered by us Democrats during the last thirty years.

But this version of bread and circuses isn't sustainable-- check out the % of mortgages issued today that are funny-money "liars' mortgages", or the ratio of household debt to household income, for starters-- and it does nothing to smooth out the huge volatility that has become the hallmark of most American lives. At a minimum we can reduce the volatility of access to health insurance, and also reduce the huge cost of same to working families, by going to a single-payor system that's actually more efficient than the status quo.

[Sunlight]

(1) Brad, if the past fifteen years haven't convinced you that there is no hope for the "Rockefeller Republican" position, what will? The Club for Growth knocking off Lincoln Chaffee? Another hard right conservative appointment to the Roberts-Alito-Scalia Court? Another 50% decline in US manufacturing employment?

(2) I agree with Paul about unions; in my view they are very important even if that might be hard to demonstrate "scientifically." More than one poster noted that non-union employees benefit from union power. Also, when unions were stronger, so were the Democrats. If unions matter so little, why did Reagan work so hard to break Patco? Why has W. worked so hard to replace AFSCME members with private, non-union contractors? Why has Wal-Mart worked so hard to keep unions out? If you don't think unions are important, Republicans and business surely do. There is a disconnect here somewhere.

(3) Trade is a key area where "center left technocrats" betrayed their middle class constituents. So many economists worship at the free trade church without realizing that Ricardo's assumptions underlying the theory of comparitive advantange no longer apply. First: no country has a geographically based comparitive advantage in manufacturing anymore. One can set up an advanced plant in any country (presumably the lowest wage country from which you can export easily). Second: Ricardo assumed a gold standard. He would blanch at free trade under today's dollar standard, which allows persistent trade imbalances. Third: Ricardo believed in the Iron Law of Wages. He never would have thought that in some countries workers would get paid significantly more than others for the same job, nor would he have believed that anyone other than owners of capital (and members of the small, nascent professional class) might earn anything more than enough to eat and nurture children. With their vast new labor pools, India and China will finish off most of what is left of US manufacturing employment unless US wages become competitive with LDCs... (assuming we don't run out of the cheap oil we need to export goods easily from Asia).