PRIVATE EYES ARE LOOKING

What value does privacy have for us? Given the recent uproar over the revelations regarding the methods used by the National Security Agency (NSA) in gathering information on the communication activities of Americans, one can assume quite a bit. The idea of government having access to our phone calls, emails, other social media use, and the like makes us very uneasy. We know that the history of totalitarian regimes and their reliance on gathering such information lend to our imaginations of government overcoming our liberties – and rightly so. After all, the founding generation had such concerns, one, from our experiences under British rule and, two, from concerns that a newly formed central government could exert such power over our recently gained freedoms. So concerned were they that the political process produced and ratified the Fourth Amendment. That bit of constitutional law protects against government unreasonably searching and seizing our things, including our papers and other information without a warrant. My purpose here is not to review or comment on this NSA scandal, but to suggest that if all this is troubling, we might want to give some very serious attention to what the private sector is able to acquire in terms of our personal information.

I want to review some of these capacities – relying on Amitai Etzioni's account¹ – of how private corporate entities, often in conjunction with government and sometimes not, have magnified the ability to gather a great deal of information about us. Never mind that the Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (1994) requires that telecommunication businesses build in capacities for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to have the ability to perform wiretaps. Private corporations, for their own uses, have developed and expanded their abilities to gather information on us. Seemingly, their purposes are limited to marketing aims, but the potential is chilling. Someone is keeping track of what you buy on the Internet, whom and how often you email, what you watch on cable, where and when you go about town or wherever else, your net worth, your real estate holdings, social security numbers, where you live and where you've lived, phone numbers, fax numbers, neighbors' names, and on and on. A lot of this information is in the public domain, but some is not, and these businesses that make it their business to know about you are using more and more sophisticated technologies to do their work. Here is Etzioni's summary of these efforts:

In short, corporations do almost everything that the federal government has been banned from doing under various laws … . [O]ne must note, first of all, that the violation of privacy by private agents often has the same effects as identical violations committed by government agents. Thus, when gay people who seek to keep their sexual orientation private are “outed” by the media, or banks call in loans of those they find out have cancer, or employers refuse to hire people because they find out about their political or religious views, privacy is violated in a manner about as consequential as if the same violations had been carried out by a government agency.²

All of these potential abuses – chilling just in terms of their possible eventuality – could dampen our liberty in very real ways. And before you think that all of this is limited to private entities, remember that all of this information is available to government.

It's not as if we haven't had presidents who formed lists of enemies and attempted to circumvent constitutional safeguards in order to discredit and intimidate opponents of their policy aims. Oh! I know a plot for a political thriller: devotees of Richard Nixon gather DNA from some old hairbrush of the former president and clone a slew of humans with this DNA so they can grow up to be the former president's genetic copies. Eventually, one is bound to become a future president and accomplish what Nixon tried to do. The only thing is, in the future this Nixon will have much more advanced technology and a stored bank of information that private corporations have already accumulated. We can call the thriller, Boys from Silicon Valley.³ Oh, that's right; the plot has already been used.

Let me share two businesses Etzioni identifies as particular firms that are doing quite a bit of gathering and have contracts with government agencies in which they share a cache of information. There is Choicepoint – 35 government contracts including with the Justice Department – and SeisInt – gathering criminal records, SSNs, bankruptcy information, property ownership, family names, credit, and other information.

Of course, such activities are an affront to the natural rights view of government. In terms of this construct's concern over private businesses gathering such information, this construct is not so clear. After all, what these businesses do, as long as laws are not broken, might not be really interfering with others' rights. If you come to the conclusion that such gathering is what someone wants to do, then others can be free to protect that information from being detected. Don't use social media, don't write emails, don't watch cable TV, don't go on the Internet, don't make a call on your phone, don't own a cell phone, don't live a modern life. A federalist concern transcends this view. The mere fact that if a person's individual ability to freely and in a non-threatened way participate in the political process is limited in any way, then federalist thinking is concerned with such a development. Such an eventuality diminishes the ability of people to be federated with each other. And this concern can be what a civics class can use to address this whole area of invading a person's privacy.

1Etzioni, A. (2013). The bankruptcy of liberalism and conservatism. Political Science Quarterly, 128 (1), pp. 39-65.

2Ibid., p. 50.

3For the sake of the younger readers of this blog, Boys from Brazil (1978) is a film starring Gregory Peck and Lawrence Olivier. The plot idea in the text is borrowed from this film.

WHO WERE THESE GUYS?

Who were the founders of our nation? I mean, really, who were they? Were they the guys whom we see depicted on those paintings? Or were they other people? Jack Rakove makes the very convincing argument that the founders were the people who made up the ratifying conventions that voted for the constitution that those guys in the paintings proposed to them.¹ Yes, the “painted” bunch wrote our constitution, but that document didn't take effect until it was ratified by nine of the conventions. It was eventually ratified by all the states. In total, by my count, there were 1,648 representatives at the various ratifying conventions. Not all conventions had the same number attending: the largest had 355 (Massachusetts) and the smallest had 26 (Georgia). More populated states tended to have more representatives, but there was no ordering of the number of representatives by the population size; Virginia, the largest state with about 821,000 people, had 168 attendees at its convention. In almost each state, a few of the representatives at their respective conventions were also members of the Constitutional Convention, but they made up a relatively small portion of the 1,648 representatives.

I relate some of these facts regarding the ratifying conventions because I want to support a claim I have made in numerous postings; that is, that more than any other mental construct, the founders held a federalist construct or worldview in terms of their political perspectives. Note: I don't say it is the only influential construct. As it turns out, this notion of how the founders saw politics, governance, and ideal citizenship is somewhat contentious today. According to Richard C. Sinopoli,² there are scholars who attribute to the founders a strong republican view. This would be in keeping with my contention since federalism is a particular form of republican thought. There are others who argue that the founders were influenced by liberal thought – what I have called a natural rights perspective. Here, the emphasis is on the idea that the founders were motivated in their political writings and actions by a desire to promote individual rights. Some of these scholars see these founders being swayed by the ideas of John Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers.

I want to point out that I never claimed that the founders were ideologues or “true believers” of the federalist train of thought. Again, what I do believe is that more than any other construct, the founders were influenced by federalist thinking. Whether they consciously knew they were following a federalist line of thinking or even went about identifying themselves as federalist devotees or not, I, frankly, don't know. I have never read anything that makes me believe they thought this way other than the fact that those founders who were promoting the new constitution of 1787 jumped on the title, Federalists. But what I do think is that their ideas and how they saw government needed to be organized and structured – from local government to national government – following a federalist model. That model first took root on American soil with the writing and implementation of the Mayflower Compact. The basic format of the compact agreement can be noted in just about all of the founding documents that set up local jurisdictions, regional arrangements, colonial/state charters and constitutions, and of course, our national constitution – even our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation.³

Here is Sinopoli's take on how “republican” or “liberal” the founders were: “Normatively, I conclude with at least two cheers for a conception of liberalism that recognizes the value of community and participation even if it is not one such liberals as Madison and Hamilton themselves would have endorsed.”⁴ This scholar points out quite emphatically that the founders harbored both republican concerns for community and liberal concerns for individual rights and prerogatives. He seems to lean in favor of the side of the debate that sees the founders as liberals, but goes on to argue that liberalism can include a concern for communal interests. I believe that the nuanced view of the founders can be best described as federalist because integral to the federalist view is its concern with the commonwealth being formed by independent and free-willed individuals who voluntarily enter compact agreements – a presumption of liberty that is extensive and profound. By the late eighteenth century, these founders had become quite accustomed to the, by that time, traditional way of seeing political arrangements. They saw them structurally as outgrowths of the arrangements which had formed their congregational churches. It was just the way these types of things were/are done.

This goes for those attending the Constitutional Convention, although among these elites the concerns for individual rights were beginning to take a stronger hold as they saw their property rights becoming more and more threatened by “highly democratic” state governments. These entities, the states, were experiencing policy decisions – such as whether higher taxes on the big land owners and talk of nullifying debt contracts should be instituted – that were beginning to undermine the institution upon which their riches relied. Incidents such as Shay's Rebellion were highly unsettling. But as the argument over the new constitution went out to the countryside and the people got to elect their representatives for the ratifying conventions – when it got closer to the regular folks – we find a different emphasis expressed. Sinopoli points out:

Anti-federalist conceptions of civic virtue and the sources of allegiance also resided in a complex moral and political psychology, one that relied on ties of personal acquaintance and the bonds of benevolence to explain political loyalties and to argue for the inevitable weaknesses of such loyalties in a large, extended republic.⁵

Anti-federalists – a poor title for those who opposed the proposed constitution – were elected to these ratifying conventions. They were fearful of this large national government being formed and being able to take away the prerogatives of their state governments. Again, for these founders, they believed the emphasis in governance should be on the independence and integrity of the entities that make up the national federal union – in this case the former individual colonies. These entities, now the separate states, were closer to the communities they knew and loved; they were closer to the biases, prejudices, and parochial beliefs that constituted who they were. Both Federalists (promoters of the proposed constitution) and Anti-federalists were all federalists; their argument would have been better titled Centrists vs. Anti-centrists – that would have been more descriptive. The question was not whether federalism had to be instituted or dismissed. The question, better posed, was whether the level of governance was better at local federal entities or a national federal entity. The resulting compromise was a dual federal arrangement which is today symbolized by a flag with fifty stars.

1Rakove, J. N. (1996). Original meanings: Politics and ideas in the making of the constitution. New York: Vintage Books.

2Sinopoli, R. C. (1992). The foundations of American citizenship: Liberalism, the constitution, and civic virtue. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

3A scholar who has done extensive work in this area is Donald S. Lutz. You can find a good summary of his work in Lutz, D. S. (1992). A preface to American political theory. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

4Op cit., Sinopoli, p. 15.

5Ibid., p. 15.

VOTE FOR THE BANDITRY OPTION?

Boy, there has been a lot of ink used to describe why we have government, how governments come about, and what governments can be expected to accomplish. In this writing, there is much disagreement; among political thinkers there are many approaches to this subject matter. That is, there is a variance in how these questions are perceived and answered – in how they see the relevant history of governance. One thing these writers seem to agree on, though, is how they, at least in part, answer the question: why government? Governance is needed, they contend, in order to manage and, if needed, settle disputes. This does not refer to all disputes, but those that cannot be settled through agreements due to human emotional bonds or through shared interests. Samuel P. Huntington¹ claims that government is not needed when social collectives are small with a common set of interests, a shared sense of values, and a relatively high level of affection between the members. But as societies grow, taking in more diverse interests, and relying on good humor and a common past does not seem to work too effectively in promoting solutions to the conflicts among interests that will inevitably materialize. At some point, a designated, non-interested party, with authority, is needed to render those decisions that will relieve or even settle such disputes. That function seems to be the one agreed upon reason for government. Even conservatives agree with that reasoning.

By conservatives, I am referring to those citizens who would agree with the general proposition that former President Ronald Reagan announced: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem.” A political thinker who seems to provide theoretical backing for this view is the late Mancur Olson. He argued that as societies grow, the social bonds grow weaker, interests diversify, and people have the logical motivation to not participate in the solutions of societal problems. They instead are motivated to become “free riders” – that is, they logically decide to enjoy the fruits of collective action, but do not put in time, effort, or money to support such action. Instead, in order to get them to put some skin in any group or collective effort(s), people need particular incentives to entice them to participate in the collective action. Government is the product of those among us who see the need for government – this dispute settling function – and exploit this reality through chicanery to place themselves in positions of power in order to steal – commit banditry – from the community they govern. Hence, the government they head becomes “the problem” as it sucks the resources from the productive members of society to provide themselves with lavish lifestyles. Not only do they steal, but they are also highly ineffective in solving the problems they supposedly set out to fix. Olson distinguishes between two types of bandits: “roving bandits” – a basis for anarchy – and stationary bandits who provide protection against roving bandits. The stationary variety, in their process of establishing government, also provide the beginnings of civilization which can eventually evolve into democracy that puts a lid on the excesses of banditry by aligning the workings of government more closely with the interests of the people. But then again, there is the problem of “free ridership” and one can readily see the best solution is for government to do as little as possible.

Of course, this line of reasoning precludes a more active view of governance. Active governance is one that sees government as that agency that can coordinate and head collective actions to strive to achieve collective ambitions. These ambitions are difficult to satisfy without government when the potential of satisfying the ambitions neither provides for private profit nor profit which can be derived by particular parties, be they individuals or businesses. Such ambitions can reflect moral considerations or they can be a generally shared desire for some accomplishment that people feel reflects well on them. The first type of ambition would be exemplified by the War on Poverty during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration in the 1960s. The second type of effort would be exemplified by the space program that was started during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration and continues today, albeit on a much reduced level. Of course, the crowning event of the space program was the US's landing a man on the moon in 1969. Most Americans take pride in that accomplishment. The role of government in either of these types of efforts, in order to be successful, is indispensable for it is only government that can summon the resources such efforts demand. But that view of governance would surely not see it as a form of banditry.

The philosophic foundations for more active governance come from varied sources; they can be deduced from thinkers from Plato and Aristotle to Karl Marx. The degree of governance with which these thinkers would feel comfortable runs the gamut from a role in which government is an encourager and a focal point expressing collective ambitions to a role as determinant agent mandating, even using coercion, to establish some ideal or “perfect” society. As a guiding mental construct, federalism lies closer to the former sort of approach – one of encourager or focal point. For federalists, perfection, if that word can be used here, lies not in some final societal condition or program or in an arrangement among citizens, but in the process of promoting the participation Olson seems to think can be derived only from particular or specific incentives that “buy” that participation. Its approach comes in direct opposition to the sentiment espoused by Olson and other critics of government action.

How do you elicit that type of participation characterizing an active government in a diverse society when there is no unifying ethnicity, religion, or occupational base? There is no guarantee, but I feel federalism in its component parts addresses some of the concerns.

For one, federalism respects the smaller units that compose a societal makeup. It is more in tune with a political environment that is apt to have more shared interests. In the US, that would be the respect and constitutional powers that are retained by the states. In addition, the evolve-ment of “home rule” within states allows localities a great deal of leeway in how they run their affairs. And while states don't have state religions anymore – a prospect some states have mentioned reviving – there are efforts in all states to promote a sense of loyalty or fidelity to that state's common history and shared values. There are attempts to celebrate the history of that state with stories of sacrifice and other folklore. While these efforts at times run contrary to agreed upon national values – often in regard to race issues – overall, a healthy respect for local modes of living and their related values has been an honored aspect of American life.

Federalism also emphasizes the foundational arrangements that originally created the society and government. They are the product of an active choice by a population to go through the process of forming an agreement by which that people will be governed. By formulating and agreeing to the provisions of a constitution, the people of a state are federated to each other by binding themselves to a compact – a solemn agreement by which they promise to live by the agreement no matter what any other party does or does not do.

Is all this idealistic in light of Olson's concerns? Perhaps, but what happens when there is no such idealism? We might create the institutional requisites for governance, but the resulting arrangement is one totally based on transactional relations, particularly in our politics. When that happens, we have to face overwhelming problems: a population not willing or able to make the sacrifices a people might and probably will be called upon to make for the common good and a population primed for nihilism. So, as I see it, those are our choices. I choose that we not only take up the federalist option – leaving all that banditry talk behind – but also that we promote it to students in our public schools.

1Huntington, S. P. (1968). Political order in changing societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE

Please don't take the title of this posting as being somehow threatening. Some postings ago, I suggested that a useful exercise for high school government students to engage in is to identify those individuals in their community who hold power. I mentioned a few ways to do that, but basically the idea was to see which residents hold leadership positions in several economic areas such as industry, professional services, financial services, and the like. After the areas are identified, a student can find which entities within the different economic areas reported the largest budgets. The leaders of those entities, one can safely assume, wield relatively more power than their fellow community members. In order to further confirm their power position, one can, as a further step in this inquiry, check out the physical attributes, such as where their offices are, the physical appearances and physical amenities of these offices, the leaders' residential areas, their commuting patterns – what they see going to and from work – and their areas of socializing. This need not be too intrusive – we don't want kids being accused of stalking – but a general view and understanding of the physical environments these leaders experience can give one a sense of the exposures these leaders of the community confront as they go about their mostly work related activities.

One hypothesis they can test is: “[i]t can only be said that location tends to isolate the men of power from the mass of citizens less powerful than themselves and from community problems.”¹ That is a conclusion that Floyd Hunter arrived at in his respected study on community power holders. He reached this conclusion from inspecting and visiting many of the areas where the identified leaders lived and where they worked. And the finding seemed more true for those leaders who represented organizations with more financial resources than those that had less. Of course, these more cloistered leaders could afford lifestyles that protected them from exposure to the more seamy and distasteful realities such as slum neighborhoods and crime ridden areas. But the question remains: how sensitive can these leaders be to the problems of their community if they are constantly shielded from them?

And this says nothing of the influence they enjoy over governmental decision-makers. So it is not just that they are potentially ill-equipped to address problems but, through their influence, they will proactively prevent those more exposed to the problems to implement the policies that might be helpful; to address those problems will probably call on diverting resources from those projects and maintenance programs they might understand as being in their interests to pursue and support. At least that might be an off-shoot of the physical conditions surrounding the lives of the powerful.

Of course, direct exposure is not necessarily needed in order to get a sense of what is “out there.” One can read and see media that reports on conditions. We know of philanthropic efforts by the wealthy across the nation. Each metropolitan area can boast of a community of charity givers and organizers that do much needed work to relieve – not solve – the level of deprivation in their communities. But it is only government that can really put a dent in the level of deprivation that confronts those needier members of the community. And, of course, this whole area of concern, from a federalist perspective, is one of equality – in terms of meeting essential needs and providing meaningful opportunity. So if those most influential are partial against such government action, the chances of local political will being sufficiently present to address the needs of the poor, even to the degree federalist thought would lead one to favor, would be small indeed. Our students should become cognizant of these relevant conditions within their community – not necessarily a simple aim to accomplish. Here is how Hunter describes the level of transparency involved:

They [the powerful] are able to enforce their decisions by persuasion, intimidation, coercion, and, if necessary, force. Because of these elements of compulsion, power-wielding is often a hidden process. The men involved do not wish to become identified with the negative aspects which the process implies, and their anonymity will be respected.²

But once informed, whether students then choose to become concerned or even involved with these political dynamics is a value choice they should be free to make. 

 

1Hunter, F. (1953). Community power structure: A study of decision makers. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. Quotation on p. 22; emphasis in the original.

2Ibid., p. 24.

ILLUSIVE SEPARATION?

Most of us are familiar with the political discourse that deals with the issue of whether government does enough for us or whether it does too much. Liberals (or what we call liberals in terms of this discussion) call for governmental programs that address a wide assortment of concerns such as poverty, health care, education, the environment, race issues, immigration, and the like. Conservatives, at almost every turn, call for a scaling back, if not eliminating or not funding government programs in these areas. There are some areas in which conservatives call for more extensive governmental action, as in abortion, but the general view is that conservatives are against government involvement in our private affairs. Much of this debate is based on an assumption: there is a private sector distinguishable from a public sector and each acts according to its own dictates and constitutes its own locus of power. That, in one realm of our society, lie those organizations – mostly businesses – that are apart from government and exist to provide goods and services for compensation. That while this realm is probably regulated by government to some degree, they exist as separate entities from government and their level of independence should be guarded and protected from the clutches of government to the extent possible. They should be able, for the most part, to act as they see fit and, by so doing, exercise their, mostly property, rights. On the other side, is a government populated by professional politicians and career government workers who operate in their own spheres with minimal involvement from outside actors. I would postulate that our civics and government instruction in schools across the nation teaches that these two sectors exist and that there exists a customary and legal separation between the two realms – the separation is part and parcel of our democracy or constitutional order.

There is a group of political scientists who question this assumption. According to Amitai Etzioni, the list of scholars who are doing (or did) the questioning include Grant McConnell, E. E. Schattschneider, C. Wright Mills, Theodore Lowi, and Mancur Olson. While these scholars might vary in their views of the extent of overlap between the two sectors and how the two act in coordination or in unison, each brings into question the view that the sectors are separate and mostly act independently of each other. They would argue, to some extent, that the sectors or realms act too much in tandem to be so independent as the assumption would have one believe.

Whether or not the sectors are independent or not or, if not, to what degree they are separate is a question that not only is important in understanding our system of governance, but dictates the types of questions that instruction should ask about our governance. A few postings ago, I reported on the use of Social Security numbers by private entities for a wide range of purposes. Etzioni reported on how the numbers are used to identify customers or clients or to categorize information about a whole slew of personal items such as medical, financial, or legal information. He used this case to illustrate how a line between the private and the public realms became blurred by the practice of utilizing Social Security numbers for private purposes or public purposes outside the Social Security program. In future postings, I will give other examples Etzioni provides. In this posting, the aim is to merely point out this scholarly area of interest that places in doubt a wide array of assumptions civics and government instruction holds – basic assumptions – of how our system is arranged and works. For if the private and public realms are not so independent from each other, many other assumptions come into question such as the essence of representation in Congress or the particularity of the policies of a specific Presidential administration. Our whole popular view of the democratic quality of our system can potentially come into question. Are these two realms answering to a third realm: corporate America, popular culture, or the political class? The point is that one cannot assume, as is the case of the Social Security numbers, that either the governmental/public sector or the business/private sector acts of its own volition – at least not entirely – and that such a possibility is not necessarily anti-democratic although it very well might be. What we can surely say is that such a reality is consequential.

The claim Etzioni is proposing is

… the deep divide between the public and the private realm (which plays a cardinal role in public discourse and is drawn upon in several segments of social science) is not nearly as deep as is often assumed, and that the two realms are intertwined and tend to change in tandem. Moreover, we often face the same forces on both sides of the divide; that is, they have a private face and a public face, but are actually often one and the same actor. Finally, the blurring of the realms has increased since the advent of cyberspace, although … it was in place long before the 1980s.¹

All of this, if true, belies the claims of the Tea Party and conservative politicians such as Paul Ryan. They push for policies or oppose policies – usually inhibiting the government from addressing pressing national problems such as unemployment – that assume the divide, that very likely, is not there.

1Etzioni, A. (2013). The bankruptcy of liberalism and conservatism. Political Science Quarterly, 128 (1), pp. 39-65. Quotation on p. 61.

REVIEWING A CIVICS MANDATE

I have from time to time in this blog made certain distinctions between traditional federalism and liberated federalism. The former is the political mental construct that served, more than any other construct, the founders in their formulation of our nation and its political/legal system. It is a construct that was heavily influenced by the congregational tradition of early religious thought that served much of the theory by which early settlements were organized. This was especially true in the New England colonies. This thought, by the way, went a long way in steering a political culture across the northern stretch of states in the United States.¹ This is a more moral approach to politics and is distinguished from the central layer of states with an individualistic perspective and southeast states that had/has a traditional political culture orientation. The moralistic strain, to a very meaningful degree, took on a mostly Aristotelian bias in that moral citizenship is marked by participation, policy judgments based on their promotion or antagonism of the common good and, with a departure from Aristotelian thought, a strong sense for equality among societal members. In addition, traditional federalism has been marked by a strong support of small polities (which is weary of larger political units like the federal government) and parochial values. But transcending all of these perspectives was the view that the polity, in order to be federalist, is the product of a people coming together and forming the governmental structure through agreement among its members. The agreement is solemn oath and takes the form of a covenant – God witnessing the agreement – or a compact – God not called upon to witness the agreement. As the nation became diversified and its political arrangements became more expansive – with an accompanying diversified view of God or a deity – a compact became the mode of agreement as is the case with the US Constitution.

For regular readers of this blog, the above description is old hat, but for newer readers it is a good review of this blog's basic ideas. This blog is dedicated to promoting a form of federalism, liberated federalism, as a construct useful in guiding content choices in a civics curriculum for our secondary schools. This form of federalism is easy on its promotion of local and small political entities, but maintains the call for equality, participation, and the set of values that denotes moral politics. It is offered as an idealistic perspective, but hopefully mindful of the real social and political nature of people.

One might ask: why call it a construct instead of a theory or an ideology? It is not a theory when it comes to guiding curricular choices because the purpose is not to give a purported definitive explanation of politics or even American politics. It is not offered as a predictive statement or as a guide for political science research. A form of it might be devised for those purposes, but here it is offered as a direction to which students' attention should be geared – what issues students should consider as they learn about their government and their nation's politics. The operative word is “consider” and as such, what is being proposed is not an ideology. It hints at what should be considered; it does not tell students what to believe. In this sense, the construct serves the same function as that of the prevailing dominant construct – that construct being the natural rights construct or as it is known in philosophical writings, liberalism (not to be confused by what is generally called liberalism in our popular discourse).

Let me confess; I am not a political philosopher – as if that weren't obvious. I am an educator concerned with how best to encourage the development of good citizens. I believe that task to be very important, especially in a democracy. I believe many of our current civics efforts are too closely hitched to the ideals and ideas associated with market values and to a construct that promotes the individual determination of values. While I am totally against a curriculum that calls on students to adopt a set of values, I do believe that we have enough history under our belts to determine a list of values that, if people would abide by them, would bolster a healthy society – a list I have provided in the past. It makes sense that a curriculum should, at least, make students aware of these values. How? By having students present issues and situations that relate to those values and have them tackle them as challenges and figure out the essence of each, the consequences of varying courses of action, the actions they favor, and the justifications for their choices. In this manner, the construct can provide the guidance, not indoctrination, of which I write.

1Elazar, D. J. (1966). American federalism: A view from the states. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

HOW FEDERALIST?

Here's an idea for seniors in high school. In a government class, they can see how federalist their community is. By federalist, I mean how much a community fits an ideal model. That model states that ideal political system is formed when a people bind together under the auspices of a covenant or compact in which all of them are equal under that agreement – equal under the law – with equal opportunity to accomplish their self-defined goals in life. This ideal does not call for equal results where all share equally in income or wealth or reputation or any other social or economic advantage. But it does, by implication, hint that the disparity of income or wealth cannot be so large that those at the bottom or middle lack any reasonable chances to improve their lots or even earn a place among those at the top.

Now this blog doesn't, as a rule, address instructional issues, but this posting will, because the implication of its topic has a strong relevance on content. So here is an instructional strategy that does point students in a specific content direction. One project for these seniors would be to investigate who belongs to the top echelon of the social and economic hierarchy within their community. This project would be especially revealing if the students live in a large urban area, but the exercise can be useful if the community is smaller and more homogenous in terms of social groupings or economic activity.

An instructional strategy for such a project can follow the research design Floyd Hunter used in his famous study, Community Power Structure.¹ I will reveal that strategy over several postings, but let me summarize briefly that a large part of the study had Hunter interview a list of forty top individuals of a city he calls Regional City. Apparently, by using the made up name he was able to keep the anonymity of those interviewed and, thereby, get more revealing information from the interviewees.

The first step was to identify those fields in which the top individuals would be found. He writes:

In Regional City the men of power were located by finding persons in prominent positions in four groups that may be assumed to have power connections. These groups were identified with business, government, civic associations, and “society” activities.²

The important element here is that the determiner for Hunter is power. That is, he is trying to determine who the people are who can get others to do what they want them to do irrespective of those other people's wishes. Given this structure, students could first inquire as to what the leading organizations are in each of these four categories. This can be determined by a variety of ways – reputation, importance, longevity, etc, – but how large their respective budgets are is probably most useful. One can probably find out what the respective budgets of these entities are – they are, for the most part, public knowledge – and the information has a more objective quality than such factors as reputation.

Once the organizations are determined, their leaders – chief executive officers, chief financial officers, chairpersons of the board, high profile board members – can be identified. A list can be formulated and by comparing budgets and what people in the know – like journalists – say about these people, a class of students can determine who the final forty should be. Once identified, the subsequent steps can begin. What those steps are will be the subject of future postings.

The object is to ascertain what these leaders believe their role is in their community, what they see is or should be the structure of opportunity in that community, and what they believe is the legitimacy of their power. Do they see themselves and their organizations as structures limited to advance their shareholders' interests or do they see a role that goes beyond that responsibility? What percentage of economic activity do they control within the community? Do they provide opportunities beyond meeting their immediate needs from the labor pool of the community? For civic associations, how do they perceive their role in advancing opportunities? What rates of success have they been able to achieve in advancing opportunities? These are some of the questions students can ask of these leaders once they are identified and interviews with them are secured. Just finding out how open to being questioned by these students can be revealing. A summary article in the high school paper can be written and published. Subsequent years can extend the list to other leaders that were not in the original list of forty and the effect over some years can be an expanded study of the power structure within the community. This would be a useful view of the kind of place in which these students live. They can get a sense of how federalist it is.

1Hunter, F. (1953). Community power structure: A study of decision makers. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

2Ibid., p. 11.