2016

Ready?  Here comes our next presidential election cycle.  Oh, you’ve been hearing about it.  Is Hillary going to run?  Is Jeb?  On and on.  How should a civics or government teacher be addressing the buzz?  How about setting the parameters?  Within what set of issues and policy considerations will the election revolve?

Chances are, those whom you hear are considering a run – or “haven’t decided yet” – are going to run.  That’s why when Mitt Romney announced he wasn’t, it was a bit of shock.  But all the rest – Bush, Paul, Cruz, Christie, etc. – you can count on them running.  And surely, that includes Hillary Clinton.  With all these personalities, it is easy to see why the press gravitates to the personalities and gives little attention to the substance or policy proposals being contended.  These latter elements provide more of a background setting.

So here is what a teacher can focus on.  First, and I feel this verges on an obligation, a teacher can set out the range of policy choices in which these positions will be stated.  The Democratic candidate must advance several principles:  raising the minimum wage, protecting labor union rights, attacking the infrastructure deterioration, closing tax loopholes that corporations enjoy, proactivity on environmental protection – especially hitting the dangers of climate change – and cutting middle class taxes (this is a bit new to the lexicon).  On the other hand, Republicans will speak about high taxes – which means high taxes on business and businessmen/women – overregulation, diminishing labor union rights, free trade, liberty, anti-abortion policies, anti-illegal immigrant policies, a strong military posture, and the deterioration of family values – which can be translated to mean anti-gay rights. 

An important part of the landscape and one that students don’t usually understand is that a campaign is not so much about convincing people to agree with what you believe in.  Yes, there is a bit of that, but people already believe what they are going to believe.  There is only about five percent of the electorate who will be swayed by what the campaigns bring forth in terms of polices.  And these folks tend to be the least educated or caring about politics and will make up their minds over trivial or incidental factors – oftentimes unpredictable events that spring up in the weeks before the elections.  Overall, if the economy is good or improving, favor the incumbent party and candidates; if not, favor the challengers.  In presidential elections, you have a significant number of voters who vote only once every four years – the presidential elections being so prominent in the media there is an “I want to be part of history” thing going on.  Add to that the chance to vote for the first, if successful, African-American president or the first woman president, and you will get higher than usual numbers going to the polls.  So who will most likely vote regardless of the times or conditions of the country?  Ideologues and angry people, that’s who.  And the first of these are set on who they will vote for and the latter are probably leaning heavily one way or the other.  The aim of a political campaign therefore, is to encourage your supporters to vote and, if possible, make it difficult – better yet, impossible – for those who will not vote for you to vote.  Oh, you can whip up anger too.  There have been awful tricks to manufacture those unpredictable events that will hurt your opponent.  More than once, a car with the opponent’s stickers all over it has stalled on a heavily used bridge, creating instant, exploitable anger.

So that is an overview of what can be covered in a classroom.  A teacher should not lose sight of the basic function of an election:  so that citizens can express their positions in the policy decisions that will arise in the upcoming years.  It is a way to re-freshen the system, to take a new course or voice support for what is going on.  The economy will take center stage, but there are enormous issues out there that should receive more attention than they will probably get: privacy concerns, domestic violence, education (what really works and how do you know?), poverty and malnutrition in significant numbers, care for needy war veterans, and how we meet our climate-changing challenge.  The other issue that will get some attention, I suppose, is terrorism.  Rightly so.  Do we rely on military force or do we honestly address the conditions that lead so many to take up arms and want to engage in these barbarous acts we hear and see going on?

As always, the upcoming election cycle will determine very important policy directions.  Hopefully, the election will give us a government that can function.  If not, perhaps we are due to revisit our constitutional make-up.  Hopefully, this is not the case.

THE PIEDS-A-TERRE* FACTOR

Federalist unions are formed by consenting individuals and/or groups coming together to create a union.  The act of federating has a set of purposes and those who join are committing themselves to the union by swearing allegiance to the provisions of a covenant or a compact.  In turn, this commitment is binding irrespective of what others in the union do, whether they abide by the provisions or not.  We who are born in the United States are automatically included in this union of “We the People” and are to abide by the provisions of the US Constitution, our national compact, their main purpose being to set up the United States government and spell out our rights under this arrangement.  The mental construct that provides the philosophical founding for this whole view is called federalism.  Let me point out that the term, federalism, is often misused in that its meaning is ascribed to the prerogatives of the states, also members of our national federation.  While this latter concern is a legitimate one under the parameters of federalism, it is not its sole concern.  Individuals and/or groups who form the union are to be equal and do have rights, but no single or group of members has inordinate or exclusive rights or powers in determining what the federated group does or forms as policy.  Therefore, to singularly use terms such as states’ rights to indicate the totality of what federalism or federalist arrangements entail is a misuse of the term.  One can equally claim that the civil rights claims of individuals or oppressed groups are equally a federalist concern.

This blog has gone over these descriptions before and one of its aims is to point out evidence of this relationship.  I have argued that the view of federalism that prevailed up to the post World War II period, I have designated as traditional federalism.  This view of governance and politics served as the background perspective of what was viewed as legitimate or illegitimate in terms of public policy. 

This posting offers another bit of evidence.  The evidence comes to us indirectly.  The New York Times reports[1] on the prevalence of “shell” companies that have sprung up and are busy buying real estate in New York and other cities.  The Times reports that these companies are a way for nefarious individuals to invest ill-gotten funds to the tune of tens of millions of dollars and, by doing so, launder that money and keep it hidden from government officials.  In its report, the paper claims that this is egregious on several fronts, and included is the fact that this is an affront to a long held federalist bias.  Let me quote the paper:

Public records, dating back to at least the 1800s in New York, set real estate apart as more transparent than bank accounts or stock portfolios.  “There is a whole Jeffersonian rhetoric about land ownership,” said Hendrik Hartog, a professor of the history of American law at Princeton.  “There was a goal to make land transparent, and it was justified by civic values and a whole range of moral judgments like not hiding ownership.”[2]

Why this exception for real estate?  In those days, real estate overwhelmingly consisted of a home and a farm.  It determined, more than any other asset, in which federated arrangement a person belonged.  In order to function as a federation, each member needed to know who his/her confederates were.  Transparency was a must.  But as the natural rights construct has taken over as the main guide in determining our beliefs over governance and politics, this has changed many of our views concerning public policy.

Included have been our requirements concerning transparency in real estate ownership.  As I have pointed out, this more current view of governance and politics has put a premium on choice – individual choice.  The currency of choice is, naturally, money.  As such, policy has become more and more guided by an exclusionary concern for generating money streams for communities as well as individuals.  In true natural rights thinking, the former mayor of New York, Michael R. Bloomberg, pronounced on his weekly radio program – in the waning days of his tenure – “If we could get every billionaire around the world to move here, it would be a godsend.”  Of course, not every billionaire has acquired his/her funds engaging in activities that promote the general welfare, the common good.  And so, policy in New York – actually in the US – has made it possible for any shell company, be it a front for a legitimate business interest, an unsavory interest, a foreign corrupt politician, or a criminal, to park his/her money in a luxury condominium that might be priced at or above $25 million.

The details of how this happens and a list of examples is provided in this lengthy article.  Let me just share a host of problems this practice has caused:  one, it has become harder, if not impossible, to recoup illegally obtained monies here in the US that are so hidden from authorities; two, law authorities are hampered in investigating crimes as it becomes very difficult to “follow the money;” three, because US laws are so lax in this field, other countries use that fact to justify their inaction to tighten their laws; and four, in addition to US officials and other interests being unable to recover monies here, foreign countries have similar problems in acquiring funds they are due from individuals who have committed crimes or are evading taxes in their countries.

Bloomberg argued that lax laws, both federal and local ones, were good for New York because the more billionaires that make their way to his city, the more of their spending will make its way down to regular folks – the trickle-down effect.  It turns out that these folks spend very little time in New York and their anonymity makes it difficult to tax them to pay for the upkeep of the city.  The city is considering establishing a new property tax to be levied on the upper end properties.  One proposal would generate $665 million a year.  Given that these individuals, the ones who are hidden and come from other countries, don’t vote, perhaps such a plan might get instituted.  But that is beyond my purposes here.

Here, I want to point out evidence that more federated-based views existed in the past and that those views have been under challenge as we have moved past such biases.  Unfortunately, as is often the case, changes in human arrangements have unforeseen consequences, especially when structurally we are still constituted under the assumptions of the previous views.

* An apartment used for temporary residence or other than primary residency.

---

[1] Story, L. and Saul, S.  (2015).  Hidden wealth flows to elite New York condos.  The New York Times, February, 8, pp. 1 and 14-16 (Front Page section).

[2] Ibid., p. 14.

“STELLA”?

This blog has offered a narrative.  It is the story of how our political culture has evolved.  The story depicts a series of changes, but overall the projection has been from what I have termed a traditional federalist construct to a natural rights construct.  The changes have affected all of our major institutions including our politics, our economy, even our family relationships.  Life today is quite different from what it was back in 1949.  The changes toward a natural rights view can be traced back to the time of our independence and the writing of our current constitution.  But the rate of change has gone into overdrive since the beginning of the ‘50s.  Such a construct shift affects many of our beliefs, many of our assumptions.  The changes seep deeply into our conscious and even our subconscious.  The old dies hard, if at all.  We can consciously believe one thing and subconsciously hold on to something else.  In no realm of life is this more true than in our sexual beliefs and emotions – sex is a strong force; it is what I call the “joker in the deck.”

Under traditional federalism, the belief was that matters of personal life are subject to external regulation, but that since this is personal, the source of regulation should be locally controlled.  We have a “right” to be comfortable with the prevailing costumes and mores.  Blue laws were well established in our country, as well as marriage laws (governing divorce, for example) and other more intimate concerns.  But entering the twentieth century, technological change was to dramatically alter this assumed domain.  The movies, for example, undermined the local province in matters of sex, family, and other moral areas.  The powers to be, seeing that a national medium undercut parochial proclivities, set up boards and commissions to regulate the content of movies.  The Catholic Church, for example, established the League of Decency and rated movies.  Their decisions determined what “good” Catholics would see.  Even more powerful was the Breen Commission that governed what was allowed to be produced.  All and all, the attempt was to save morally bent people, those influenced by Puritanical standards of decency, from being exposed to unwanted material.  It also attempted to assure that young people not be shown material that would undermine these good people’s efforts to properly socialize their children to their moral view.  Since these standards varied widely across the country, decisions were made in favor of the most restrictive.  This, in turn, restricted the options of film producers.

Of course, all of this was not accepted so willingly.  Motivated by artistic aims and by making more money, the film industry fought this system to varying degrees of stridency.  The owners of studios such as Warner Brothers and MGM were more willing to go along as long as all of the studios were equally affected.  It was more the producers, directors, and actors who objected most since this interfered with what they wanted to accomplish on screen.  No more emblematic to this drama was the story associated with producing A Streetcar Named Desire.  In his book, David Halberstam[1] gives a short, insightful overview of that story.  One bit of context; the story line of the film had already been the subject of a Broadway play.  As today, Broadway was mostly patronized by more urbane audiences, not the more rural clientele with which the regulatory boards were so concerned.  Here is the urbane people’s reaction:

A Streetcar Named Desire was not just a play – it was an event.  Its frank treatment of sophisticated sexual themes marked it as part of a powerful new current in American society and cultural life.  Even the plot seemed emblematic – the brutal assault on Blanche’s prim, Victorian pretensions by Stanley’s primal sexuality.  Every night on Broadway the audience would leave the theater visibly shaken – not only in response to Blanche’s breakdown, but also in some small way, perhaps, because they had gotten a glimpse of the violent changes just beginning to transform their own culture and lives.[2]

And now the story was going national on the big screen.  Of course, the plot did not make it to the screen untouched.  Halberstam gives an interesting account of that transition.  But enough of the story survived to make it a classic and helped propel its leading man to stardom.  He, Marlon Brando, would be one of those cultural figures who would personify what that transformation would be.

My take on this upheaval is that it was needed.  Traditional federalism had become over-restrictive for a world we had created with films, radio, and now the Internet.  One can view this from an absolute sense:  people should have the right to express themselves, period.  Or one can view this in more relative terms:  rights are based on the social values that prevail in a given time.  What, to me, seems timeless is our need to conduct our affairs in social contexts and that in order to be functional, we must take into account what can be handled at a given time.  Yes, there are certain rights that transcend any social setting.  Slavery is immoral in any setting, for example, regardless of what one might find in any holy text or what had been accepted practice in the past.  Societies that engaged in it paid a price.  But liberty is a social construct, and its very definition has changed through the centuries.  The Puritan’s view of it is vastly different from what prevails today.  The question we, including secondary students, should ask is:  does our view of liberty enhance the ability of our society to survive and does it enhance our ability to achieve our established goals and aims?  Asking these questions does not determine an exact definition of liberty, but they do provide a functional approach to determining what liberty should mean.

---

[1] Halberstam, D.  (1993).  The fifties.  New York, NY:  Fawcett Columbine.

[2] Ibid. p. 256.

WHAT TO DO?

What’s a rich person to do?  When it comes to politics or life in general, rich people tend to prefer solo efforts.  That is, they tend to want to “do it themselves.”  They want and can afford to garner control and that means they prefer to shy away from entanglements with others.  Of course, reality is such that that is often not possible, so instead of totally dismissing the assets others can bring to the table, they form compromised accommodations.  This is opposed to lesser endowed actors who know quite well that they do not have such luxuries and are highly dependent on the help of others.  They in turn form alliances.  If one projects this to national politics, we can say the political party that suffers more from division is the party that more closely represents the rich, the Republican Party.  That party has been more of a constellation of interests as opposed to an alliance of interests.  Of course, as with most things, this is more a tendency than a hard and fast rule, but one useful to keep in mind when studying political campaigns.[1]

And no political campaign demonstrates this more than the presidential campaign of 1800.  Spoiler alert:  Thomas Jefferson won that election.  He won it with a man from the opposing party as his vice president, Aaron Burr (yes, that Burr who did in Alexander Hamilton).  The details of why that happened is beyond my purposes here, but makes for an interesting story you might want to look up.  No, actually, it does have something to do with my purposes here, because one reason that Jefferson won was due to the actions of Hamilton.  More below.

You see, the 1800 election marks the first time in our history when the party in power lost and the opposing party won and took over the reins of power.  For a nation not well established within its institutions, this could easily have been an iffy thing, but it was pulled off without much disruption.  The reason is central to what I am conveying.  I have written how the predominant political construct of the time was traditional federalism: a view of politics that at its core believes a polity is made up of members of a community coming together to form it.  This is done under the auspices of a binding compact.  The question I have not addressed too clearly has been who makes up that community.  Are all included?  One of the defining developmental themes of American politics has been how the definition of a political community has been determined.  Initially, the real political community was defined as all families who own property, represented by the patriarch of that family.  Hence, the vote was limited to males who owned some minimal amount of property.  This was the case in 1800.  With that as context, we have the first meaningful challenge by the agrarian portion of that population to the more moneyed portion.

Under the auspices of President George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, instituted our first financial system.  The policy called for paying off the national debt and providing subsidies for those who were willing to invest in the American economy, specifically benefiting those who invested in manufacturing, finances, and public securities.  And all this was being paid for by taxes which fell most heavily on planters and farmers – the agrarians.  To the rescue came Thomas Jefferson and his followers known as the Republicans.  They fought the Federalists, Hamilton’s party, in the 1800 election and they won.

Did that mean the dismantling of the Hamiltonian system?  Nope, it did not.  As Richard Hofstadter[2] quite clearly informs us, Jefferson understood that a system that had already become institutionalized – the system had been in effect for twelve years – would be too disruptive to change, much less eliminate.  An attempt to do so could cause such upheaval that a depression could result and hurt the very planters and farmers Jefferson championed.  So, with some few exceptions – the excise tax was eliminated and the national bank expired – the provisions of Hamilton’s system were maintained.

My point here is to encourage history teachers to not be so engrossed with the individual actors, such as Jefferson and Hamilton, but to give more attention to the groups and organizational climate of a given time in order to see what the real politics of that time were.  While Jefferson can truly be considered the spokesperson for the interests of the agrarian faction, he by no means let ideology dictate his policies.  Instead, he took, as president, a posture that respected the landscape of the political realities with which he dealt.  A way to begin asking the telling questions about a particular time is to see the American polity as a federal arrangement.  The first question becomes:  who makes up the federated polity during the time being studied?

As for the role Hamilton played in the 1800 election, when the decision was thrown into the House of Representatives, controlled by Federalists, Hamilton lobbied for Jefferson.  This was a decidedly antagonistic act against his fellow New Yorker, Aaron Burr.  In a letter to one House member, Hamilton predicted that Jefferson, as president, would not be a radical, but an accommodator.  This accurate prediction might not have secured Jefferson’s victory, but it surely did not hurt.

---

[1] For an interesting description of this trend see Schattschneider, E. E.  (1960).  The semi-sovereign people:  A realist’s view of democracy in America.  New York:  Holt, Rinehart and Winston.  This general tendency should not be interpreted as saying that the Republican Party is more in disarray or undisciplined.  Perhaps due to the herd character of their constituency, the Party, as compared to the Democrats, is much more disciplined generally.  It is said that in the Republican Party, presidential nominees are chosen more as a process of determining whose turn it is.  Lately, though, with the rise of the Tea Party faction and that of the evangelicals, the Party is not as disciplined as it once was.

[2] The factual information concerning the 1800 election and its aftermath are based on Hofstadter, R.  (1948).  The American political tradition.  New York, NY:  Vintage Books.

AGREEMENT?

If I were in the classroom today, teaching government to seniors as I did for many years, I would probably hit on a certain theme often between now and the next presidential election.  I would use the level of income inequality as a way to approach many policy questions, because there seems to be at last a point of agreement between Democrats and Republicans.  Both parties have placed, at least as far as their current language indicates, the problem of income inequality on center stage.  The benefit of utilizing this theme is that not only is it a truly important issue and going to be a recurring topic of political discourse in the media, but it also blends nicely with the other course seniors take: economics.  As do most social studies programs across the country, south Florida offered American government for one semester of the senior year and economics the other.  So here is a theme that allows a teacher to carry it over the thirty-six weeks and a vehicle by which to reinforce lessons over that time.

Both parties are concerned with income inequality; they approach policy, though, from different perspectives.  By using this opportunity to look at inequality, students can research each perspective and determine which party comes closer to effectively addressing this serious problem.  It seems that this attention, on the surface anyway, is a significant shift for the Republican Party.  The last presidential election was noted with the party’s nominee being quoted as saying how Democrats could rely on 47% of the vote because it catered to the “takers,” those voters who receive government assistance of one form or another.  Republicans, by implication, are that party that represents the “doers,” people who work for their livelihood and depend on their own efforts to meet their needs and wants.   Until recently, the charge by Republicans is that Democrats engage in envy politics; that is, appeal to those who are envious of the success of those “doers.”

But now that we are in a new cycle – the last one being so unsuccessful – a new strategy seems to be emanating from many of the potential Republican candidates.  The message I am hearing is that the reason there is so much inequality is the economic policies of the current president.  This reveals a lot about how Republicans “see” the problem.  I write see in quotes because I feel the party senses that inequality is so rampant that denying it or blaming it on such large numbers of the electorate is counterproductive.  What they have been spouting feels as if their rhetoric is just a way to accommodate the practical political realities associated with the problem.  They have hit on this argument so as to talk about it and to promote policies they favor due to their constituency – the business class – and at the same time hopefully entice those who will buy into this message.  The message, in simple terms, is that President Obama’s policies have created disincentives to the business class – in terms of high taxes and over-regulation – so that they, businesspeople, are discouraged from creating those jobs that could provide the type of income that would address the levels of inequality.

Each party has worked around two visions of equality that have had a degree of popularity in our political tradition.  As I described them earlier in this blog, they are:

•         Equal Opportunity, Limited Rewards – General belief orientation which views persons who enjoy superior human assets (e. g., intelligence, physical dexterity, humor, etc.) due to their personal efforts are entitled to above normal considerations in society in the form of status, wealth, material possessions, etc.  These advantages, though, are limited only to areas associated with their earned accomplishments or contributions to society.  Any entitlements acquired as a result of employing these assets are time limited as a recipient must continue to demonstrate his or her worthiness.  Said rewards, other than status, must be purchased and are not distributed to beneficiaries due to membership in any class or family.  Monetary reward payoffs for an individual’s contribution or for his or her status must be within limits.  That is, they should not unreasonably exceed the person's contribution to the welfare of the society or provide such a level of financial standing so as to secure for him or her an ongoing, established source of benefits.

•         Equal Condition – General belief orientation which views persons who enjoy superior human assets (e. g., intelligence, physical dexterity, humor, etc.) due to their personal efforts are entitled to above normal considerations in society in the form of status, wealth, material possessions, etc.  There are no limits to that compensation other than as a result of the vagaries of the economic or political system.  In capitalist societies, that would be the market.  Other than status, all entitlements are to be purchased and monetary advantages do not entitle a person to unequal advantages under the law.  The orientation extends to prohibit any restrictions on monetary or other types of rewards as long as the rewards reflect labor compensations, dividends, rents, or profits.  Advantages are purchased and are not the product of membership in a family or class.  The labor value of any person is based on its market value.[1]

Democrats tend to adopt the first of these views – Equal Opportunity, Limited Rewards – and Republicans the second – Equal Condition.

Lessons that utilize the theme of inequality, I believe, should place the study in some historical context and this ongoing distinction of views – the ones described immediately above, is helpful in that endeavor.

In addition, lessons should describe and explain main factual information.  One fact is that the move toward such high levels of inequality was not developed overnight.  We can detect increasing levels from the 1980s and the Reagan administration.  Another fact is that the consensus among economists as to the causes of inequality are technological changes that have facilitated the exportation of higher paying jobs and the elimination of manual labor jobs, neutralization of labor union power, the rise of financial services, and trade policies that have lowered trade restrictions.  Little to no attribution has been extended to Obama policies.  Another point is that Obama, as president, enjoyed only two years with a cooperative Congress.  Since the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans have controlled the House of Representatives and have enough votes in the Senate to block any of Obama’s efforts to address inequality.  By the same token, Republicans have been blocked by the fact that a Democrat has been in the White House.

As for the economic conditions that characterize this inequality, there are many.  For example, the ratio between Chief Operating Officers and the typical worker is 200 to 1.  This is at historic highs; it used be 30 to 1; as Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz comments, it is hard to believe that the productivity of these CEOs has increased so dramatically of late to justify such increases in this ratio.  By way of comparison, the ratio in Japan is 16 to one.[2]  And there is evidence that this is a particular US problem; not all modern economies are experiencing these levels of inequality and those nations which enjoy higher equality have not suffered as a result.  Between 2000 and 2010, high-taxing Sweden that has policies guaranteeing much higher levels of equality – such as universal healthcare – grew economically at a faster rate than the US.[3]

Lessons can teach such theoretical tools as the Gini coefficient.  This gives a numerical representation of how unequal income is distributed in a particular economy.  The coefficient gives an economy the score of zero if income is distributed equally among all of the population (perfectly equal) and a score of one if all the income goes to one person (or household, depending how the numbers are designated); this is perfect inequality.  All economies fall somewhere between these two end points of zero and one.  In this coefficient, “equal” societies have a .3 score, while unequal societies have a .5 or above; such high scores are seen in very underdeveloped economies such as in Africa.  Today the US is .47, up from .4 in 1980.[4]

Armed with such facts, students can study the policy proposals that are bound to be espoused in the upcoming election campaigns.  May the fun begin.

---

[1] These orientations should be viewed as ideal beliefs and, in real life, are subject to compromising behavior.  In a recent book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist, Thomas Piketty, argues that due to the accumulation of capital there has developed an entrenched class who is benefiting from income based on that capital.  This mirrors the conditions of the Gilded Era and other times of skewed wealth and income to the top of the economic pyramid.

[2] Stiglitz, J. E.  (2012).  The price of inequality:  How today's divided society endangers our future.  New York, NY:  W. W. Norton and Company.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

MAGRUDER ON SOCIAL SECURITY

With this posting, I finish my review of Magruder’s American Government textbook.[1]  The effort has been to pass judgment on whether Magruder’s is more reflective of natural rights values and principles in its portrayal of governance and politics or whether it conveys more of a federalist bias.  This blog contends that the prevailing mental construct guiding the choice of content in our government and civics classrooms is the natural rights construct.  The blog promotes the federalist theory construct for that purpose.  I pick on Magruder’s because it is the overwhelming choice of American high schools as the text that teachers use in teaching American government.  As I have repeated often in this blog, one cannot overestimate how reliant teachers are on the textbook they use when determining the content of their courses.

In this final posting on this concern, I have chosen to focus on how Magruder’s treats Social Security.  Why?  I do so because I feel Social Security is the most federalist of programs at the national level.  Federalism, as I have described it, does put an emphasis on local governance and politics.  It is at that level that individual citizens can get involved and make a difference with policy choices.  But at the national level, the stakes are higher and draw the interest of more well-funded factions which renders the average individual at a prohibitive disadvantage.  Social Security is no exception to this general relationship.  But the way Social Security is structured makes it especially “federal.”  Let me explain.

Especially in its retirement program, we have one segment of the population providing for another.  Those young enough to work pay their FICA[2] tax and that, in turn, is used to pay for the benefits of the older generation that is now retired.  When the young grow older and retire, they will get the benefit from those who are younger and are working.  In other words, the program is an intergenerational compact and that structural provision binds the interests of all federated citizens closer together – a higher sense of partnership among us all.  My problem with how we view it is that few of us seem to understand this basic relationship.  Instead, we hear retired folks claim they are entitled to the benefit because they paid into it all their working years, as if those payments correspond to a forced savings program.  Few understand that those who live a normal life span will probably receive more in benefits than not only they paid in but also more than what would be normal interest returns on those amounts.  A healthy view of Social Security is to view it as a by-product of ourselves being federated with each other and providing a program that enhances the common welfare.  Social Security, for example, allows younger workers to go about their lives without being so concerned for the financial status of their parents.  And Social Security has but eliminated what used to be a chronic problem:  poverty among the elderly.  I know the program has certain financial challenges on the horizon and my purpose here is not to discuss that.  My only purpose is to highlight the program as an essentially federalist approach to a vexing problem:  how do you take care of those of us who can no longer work due to age?

So how does Magruder’s handle this program?  Here’s what it has to report:  on page 289, it informs students that Congressional members are covered by Social Security; on page 44, it explains that Social Security is designated as an independent agency and is not situated structurally under one of the “Cabinet” departments; on page 460, it defines the program as a social insurance program and  that it is funded by a social insurance tax; on page 461, it points out that the FICA tax is a regressive tax in that it is a “flat” tax – everyone pays at the same percentage of income rate; and on page 469, the text explains that expenditures of the program are “uncontrollable” in that they are entitlements and the monies are automatically issued.  This, of course, is not exactly true – a point the book makes – in that ultimately, expenditures can be controlled because Congress can change the law and, in turn, determine how much the program would pay in benefits.  Of course, this course of action would be highly unpopular and suicidal – career wise – for any politician who attempted or promoted such a change. 

In sum, in all that describing and explaining of Social Security, one does not have the federalist foundation of the program described, much less explained and, due to such instruction, little is done to inform and encourage a more federalist understanding of Social Security.  This, of course, enables in part the misunderstanding of the program alluded to above.

So, overall, Magruder’s does little to promote a federalist perspective.  I would argue that, instead, it promotes a natural rights view.  You are encouraged to look at the textbook yourselves and see if you agree.  If you get your hands on one, easily obtained at any public high school, have a list of governmental departments or agencies in mind; thumb back to the index and look up how that part of the government is explained.  You can do the same thing for a particular program such as Social Security or Medicare.  Am I advocating to get rid of Magruder’s?  Definitely not.  I believe the book to be a good reference book and that’s how it should function in the classroom.  Whether one uses a federalist theory approach or not, this text can be used as a “go-to” source for structural information about our government.  But it should not be used to determine what the content of a government course should be.

---

[1] McClenaghan, W. A.  (2013).  Magruder’s American Government (Florida Teacher’s Edition).  Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson.

[2] FICA stands for Federal Insurance Contributions Act.

MAGRUDER ON PRACTICAL CONCERNS OF CITIZENSHIP

I am in the midst of reviewing a selection of inserts found in the American government textbook, Magruder’s American Government.[1]  Because this text is the overwhelming choice of government educators around the country and due to the reliance teachers place on textbooks, a look at Magruder’s is a good way to find out what content is being taught in those government classes.  To date, I have reviewed three of those inserts:  “letters to the editor,” “political campaigns,” and “volunteering.”  The series of inserts is meant to give practical advice to students who might be interested in involving themselves.  In general, the tone of these inserts cannot be interpreted as any hard sell on engaging in these activities – there is mention in one of them of obligation to be engaged, but that is as close to “selling” citizen participation as these inserts get.  In the main, they take on the tone of addressing a student who might already be inclined to an activity such as writing a letter to an editor.  I have indicated that judged by federalist standards, the inserts fall far short of being adequate; instead, they work quite nicely if one adheres to natural rights values.[2]

The remaining inserts I have looked at are:  “political roots and attitudes,” “voting,” and “writing to public officials.”  The most interesting of these is “political roots and attitudes,” the most useful and practical is “writing to public officials,” and the most disturbing is “voting.”  None of them, with the exception of one, give what I deem incorrect information, and they all are straightforward efforts to convey information.  None are an attempt to encourage the activity highlighted.

I found the “political roots” insert interesting in that it has students construct an opinion poll questionnaire on one of three issues: national debt, environment, and the economy.  While not making any effort to review what opinions are currently talked about concerning these issues, the insert seems to assume the student has some previously held beliefs and biases.  The concern is more about how to determine what classmates might feel about the chosen issue.  The information does not include any list of dos and don’ts concerning how to write an opinion questionnaire, other than to be neutral, but perhaps a teacher using the inserts can “springboard” into having students research the techniques that professionals use in such efforts.

The one disturbing bit of “information” found in any of the three inserts is in the “voting” insert.  There, voting is described as a privilege, not a right.  While voting is not a natural right, it is a civil right – a right created by law.  When one considers the sacrifices African-Americans and women and, in some countries, non-propertied workmen made to get those laws allowing them to vote,  referring to voting as a privilege is a bit disheartening.  Hopefully, there is no sinister motive in using this language.

The insert dedicated to writing to a public official is the most useful.  It gives good advice about how to structure any letter or email that a constituent might write so as to be more effective.  In so doing, the tone immediately becomes more encouraging.  It even mentions how politicians are more influenced by a voter, considering the effort such an activity might entail.  Given that a voter is willing to go to that length, he or she is probably someone who is willing to encourage others to hold similar opinions to those expressed in the letter or email.  Each of them, in turn, might be persuaded to vote in a certain way and as a result, that might affect the politician’s future success in keeping his/her job.

Overall, though, the effects of these inserts mirror those previously reviewed.  In terms of encouraging communal participation or social capital – the societal quality characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation – the inserts are woefully lacking.

In my next posting, I will look at Magruder’s treatment of the Social Security program.  Earlier, I identified the program as one that is fundamentally based on federalist principles, at least as those principles are defined in this blog.  As such, a text’s treatment of the program, I feel, would give good insight as to how the material reflects either federalist or natural rights values and principles.

---

[1] McClenaghan, W. A.  (2013).  Magruder’s American Government (Florida Teacher’s Edition).  Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson.

[2] For those of you who are new to this blog, the blog has dedicated a lot of space to explaining the difference between federalist values and natural rights values.