I DO, DO I?

I have in this blog referred to marriage as the fundamental federalist union. Here, two adults choose to form a union under the auspices of a covenant or compact. They promise to be by each other's side come hell or high water. And this includes all sorts of situations no matter what either one does. At least, that is the model. We, through the years, have compromised this ideal. I have to admit that the realities characterizing too many actual marriages fall far short of the ideal. Many of our popular dramas we love to watch are about how spouses, most often the husband, cheat on their partners in one way or another. Be that as it may, the importance of the family and the marriage upon which this institution is based need to be examined. It is a subject our youngsters in school should explore, because the role that marriages play in promoting a healthy society cannot be overestimated.

Yet our institution of the family is lacking sufficient success – current rates of divorce have leveled off at 45% since 1980. Consequently, we are under the burden of social effects that are detrimentally keeping us from accomplishing significant goals. Such as what? Such as a society with low crime rates, with an educated populace, with a labor force that can readily meet the demands of our modern economy, with a people who are able to seek and attain those personal ambitions they set for themselves. The simple truth is that marriages not only serve the spouses involved, but also set the stage for the creation of the next generation with all of its promise for the future.

So a central question in analyzing this institution would be: why would people want to get married? Why would they want to set up their lives, committed in the most intimate ways, with one other person? What are they looking for when they say, “I do”? And in this, as it turns out, there has been a significant amount of research, mostly by sociologists.

Eli J. Finkel¹ provides a bit of an overview of recent findings one can find in this academic literature. He approaches this complex concern from the perspective of two domains: economic and psychological. One is the varying economic demands that people faced through the years of our nation's existence – how the particular set of demands of any era shape the expectations of prospective couples. The other domain is the psychological developmental stages that people go through as they have or don't have their perceived needs met.

As for economic demands, Finkel identifies three broad models he sees characterizing how Americans have viewed marriage over the nation's history: the institutional marriage (up to about 1850), the “companionate” marriage (1850-1965), and the self-expressive marriage (1965 to the present). Basically, as Americans were able to more readily meet the economic necessities facing them, this in turn helped Americans meet their needs. As they became more proficient economically, their motivational expectations developed into different psychological views as to what constitutes a workable marriage – a marriage that provides satisfaction of the expectations one has for getting married in the first place.

In general, there is a development among populations that progresses from the oldest, more austere times to the more prosperous times of today. And it happens that a respected psychological model on motivation helps us understand this development. That model is Abraham Maslow's “hierarchy of needs.” The model postulates that as one is able to satisfy a set of lower needs, one is confronted by a higher set of needs. The general trend is from the lowest level – survival needs (mostly biological needs for food, shelter, safety, and touch) – to mid-range needs – social needs of comradeship and love – to finally the highest level needs – personally directed needs of esteem and self-actualization. It's not that we lose our lower needs as we ascend this hierarchy; we continue to seek food and shelter, but our conscious emphasis falls on the higher and in many ways more complex needs.

Using these domains, Finkel identifies the three eras I listed above, each with its own view of what marriage should provide spouses. Let us review the implications of all this by explaining each marital model. The institutional marriage model was in vogue when the primary economic needs of Americans were to provide food and shelter. Sure enough, marriage decisions in the earliest years – pre-1850 – centered around concerns over providing the lowest level needs of food, shelter, and protection against violence. These were the primary considerations in determining whether one was to marry or not and to whom. Love? In an institutional marriage, one could hope for it, but the emphasis was on the more immediate survival considerations that were central to most people during those years.

With a more secure and prosperous economy, one could allow oneself to be more concerned with loving someone and with being loved. With basic needs for the most part met, in a “companionate” marriage, one can begin to look for and focus on companionship that reflects emotional attachment to one's perspective spouse. At the same time, men, especially, found employment outside the homestead – a movement from rural employment to urban labor. The sexes, in vast numbers, began to live in distinct social environments: the home versus a factory, mine, business shop, or office. The expectation became that love would keep these mates together, as opposed to those mutual concerns over making a farm a success.

In our last era, the self-expressive marriage model became prominent at least in people's minds. Since 1965, people have lived in significantly richer times. For those who have benefited from this largess, people have reasons to formulate a new set of psychological expectations. The cultural media outlets tend to promote these types of expectations since they are more likely to describe and focus on people from upper income households. And so, a different marriage model becomes prevalent: the self-expressive marriage. This has taken hold among most people since 1965. Under this model, the new emphasis becomes one's own individual needs: esteem and self-actualization, Maslow's highest levels. Marriage mates, who are now safely ensconced in lucrative careers, are not so dependent on companionship, but instead are apt to look for that person who will help or at least allow one to bolster one's self importance and/or one's self-meaning. But a word of caution concerning this view: I can't help but describe this as an outlook that encourages a more narcissistic view. If one does not define self-importance as being determined by service to others, the outlook is one of selfishness and, by definition, not one that bolsters the sacrifices that living with someone else demands – hence a 45% divorce rate. This is especially true if both partners see marriage with the same set of self-centered expectations. Unfortunately, in an age when the dominant social and political construct is the natural rights perspective, the likelihood that either or both spouses will see marriage as a means to advance a more self-serving agenda is much more likely.

Given the importance of the family and the relationship it has with the institution of marriage, there is a need to address all of these concerns in civics classes. Marriages have a crucial role in securing a healthy dose of social capital in our or any society. To quote a previous posting:

The problem of incivility [a central concern of civics education] can be defined as a lack of social capital. The social scientist [Robert D.] Putnam … defines social capital as a societal quality characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.²

If upon looking around today, you sense we have too few of these listed qualities, perhaps one of the reasons has to do with marital expectations that encourage selfish behavior that is non-conducive to healthy family relations.

Finkel reinforces the notion that we have higher divorce rates, especially among the lower income population (as reflected by lower educational attainment levels). He argues that lack of income makes self-expressing expectations more or less unaffordable. These types of findings lead Finkel to postulate that while divorce rates are high, those who can meet the expectations of current societal conditions tend to find themselves in very rewarding and self-enhancing unions. My take is that there are qualitative issues that these marriages must address, irrespective of their educational or income levels, and federalist thought might guide us toward looking at what those are. Does the marriage encourage healthy perspectives that frame the relationship in accordance with those qualities that advance social capital in whatever minimal amount that relationship can contribute? Does it, for example, promote trust between the spouses and between the couple and their social environment? Or does it encourage a self-serving posture that invites anti-social relations between them and/or among their social relations? All these are factors that contribute to the happiness a particular marriage enjoys and can determine its ability to not only survive but also be fulfilling.

As for couples that cannot literally afford higher expectations, whether in terms of finances, time, or energy (self-actualizing relations do take significant amounts of effort), Finkel suggests: “they might consider adjusting their expectations, perhaps by focusing on cultivating an affectionate bond [mid-range Maslow needs] without trying to facilitate each other's self-actualization.”³ For whatever level a particular person finds him/herself in, an understanding of the psychological forces that are in effect would, I believe, increase the chances for that person's eventual marriage to work. We all have a vested interest in upping the probabilities of successful marriages. These probabilities can be affected by what we address in school, particularly in civics classes.

1Finkel, E. J. (2014). The all-or-nothing marriage. The New York Times, February 16, Sunday Review section, pp. 1 and 6. The reported factual information in this posting is derived from this article.

2See posting More Formal Evidence of Incivility, November 1, 2010.

3Op cit., Finkel, p. 6.

NO GO

We just had an important election. No, it wasn't to determine who was going to serve in some official position; instead, it was to determine if a group of workers was to be represented by a labor union. Those workers work for a Volkswagen plant in a southern state, Tennessee – a “right to work” state. A right to work state is a state that disallows union-only work sites. That is, you don't have to join a union in order to work there. It is also a state that allows non-union workers to share in the benefits that a union is able to negotiate for its workers. I worked in a right to work state. I belonged to the union that negotiated the collective contract that determined my income and other benefits. I had colleagues who did not belong to the union, but they were paid the same as I and had all the benefits I enjoyed. We were represented by the union because teachers – before my time – in my school district voted for that representation. That was the type of election these workers in Tennessee just had, but they voted NO. So they will continue to have no union representation.

Labor unions pose a challenging concept for federalists. On the one hand, a union is a federation among workers of a company or governmental work place, such as my school. They coordinate their needs; they negotiate; they compromise; they choose those fellow workers who will attend union meetings; they act collectively. In other words, they come together and subsume their individual immediate interests for the good of the collective. But in doing so, they potentially undermine the collective for which they work. That is, especially if one views such situations as a zero sum game, they strive for shares of revenue that could go to other groups or projects or activities that the company or governmental entity wishes to support or achieve. Yet unions can be and often are sub-groupings within a business or government agency which can function to better the efforts of those employed. If this is a function of the union, then a union can be a way to further federalize the whole workplace in question.

The Tennessee workplace is an automobile assembly plant for VW located in Chattanooga. The election garnered the attention of local politicians within the state. The Republican governor and the state's US senator, also a Republican, came out with statements concerning the election in the weeks preceding it. They proclaimed a mix of threats. The governor said that if the workers voted for the union that auto parts suppliers would not move to the Chattanooga area. Senator Bob Corker claimed that VW executives were ready to add a production line if the union were turned down. He and other Republicans began to associate potential consequences of accepting the union with the conditions one finds with the Detroit auto industry. They blamed the industry's woes on the actions of the United Automobile Workers union. The U.A.W. is the union that was vying to represent the Chattanooga workers. What is curious about all of this is that VW took a public stand of neutrality concerning the election and even seemed positively disposed toward accepting a union presence at the Chattanooga plant.

This positive stance seems to indicate a more federal approach to the whole question of union representation. It turns out that VW has been working to make its American production plants more in line with its German plants. A main feature of that model is the presence of unions and work councils. These are structural elements that allow and promote worker input into the production processes and strategies so as to arrive at the most efficient means of producing their cars and other vehicles. The company, according to reports, favors these structural elements to achieve a set of goals: higher morale, more effective work rules, better cooperation between workers and executives, and more reasonable plant hours. So Senator Corker's claim of an antagonistic VW view of the union seems, on the face of it, to be untruthful. But would an American union function as do their German counterparts? Are they not guilty of driving American automakers into the ground and near extinction?

This is a complicated question. To decipher a meaningful answer, let me suggest a somewhat dated book. For a good review of the history of the American auto industry – and the related history of the Japanese automakers – I suggest The Reckoning by the late David Halberstam. In his review of events starting in the nineteenth century, one can find a role that the unions played in the downturn of the auto industry. But really, a much more causal factor was the oligopoly that the auto industry became, especially after World War II. One needs to remember that that war destroyed the global industrial capacity outside the United States. This put American automakers in an almost monopolistic position. This, while accruing unbelievable profits for American firms, encouraged a general disposition to engage in sloppy and inefficient practices among their production processes. In addition, it created a culture among workers and executives that through the years downgraded the quality of the product they were producing. This not only placed American cars and other vehicles at a disadvantage when compared to the inevitable competition that began to emerge, especially from Japan, but left American automakers in a self-imposed malaise that made it extremely difficult to overcome in order to meet the new, stiffer competition. Yes, unions played a role. There seems to have been an understanding between U.A.W. and the Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) to allow ever larger wages for workers as the added expenses were simply passed on to the consumer. This whole arrangement almost killed the industry here in the USA. But the union was not the sole culprit in this history of demise.¹

So times have changed, although we are still paying for the shortsightedness of the past. The question is: have the players learned from their past sins? “Mr. [Bob] King [a union executive leading the Chattanooga effort] said his union, long known for contentiousness and strikes, was turning a new leaf and supporting cooperation to help automakers succeed.”² Apparently, Tennessee workers did not believe this claim. They did not see any great benefit in joining a union. It turns out that entry level workers in the Chattanooga plant make the same amount as unionized entry level workers up north. The point is: upper tier workers up north make $9.00 more an hour than upper tier workers in Chattanooga. We know that during the past decades, the level of median wage nationally has been decreasing and the pace of that decrease mirrors the decrease in union membership. Why? My understanding is that even though at any one time only a minority of workers belonged to unions, the fact that they were more vibrant in the past enabled the unions to secure notably higher wages for their members. In turn, these higher wages competed with those that other employers paid, in effect forcing these other employers to pay more. The general effect was that all wages were higher than they are now with lower union membership. This election in Tennessee was important because it was a good chance to encourage further unionization in the South. Well, that failed in this round. Mr. King said, “One great thing about the U.A.W., one great thing about workers, is we don't quit … We face setbacks and we get up to fight another day to make sure workers have a voice.”³ Here's hoping for an eventual federated voice both among workers and between workers and their bosses.

1Halberstam, D. (1986). The reckoning. New York, NY: Avon Books.

2Greenhouse, S. (2014). Defeat of auto union in Tennessee casts its plans into doubt. The New York Times, February 16, p. 19. The facts reported in this posting about the VW union election are reported in this article.

3Ibid.

JUST A LITTLE BIT

A loud and vibrant issue discussed today is that of the minimum wage. I have stated my position on this issue already: a person who works a full time job in the legitimate labor market deserves a living wage. This is, I am claiming a federalist position in that that view of governance and politics holds as a basic value one of equality – not of results, but of one that strives to secure equal opportunity in the most perfect sense possible. This is held above all other considerations, short of societal survival, and is surely held above the amount of employment such a policy affects. Whether one agrees with this position or not, if one were to be guided by a federalist construct in determining content in civics instruction, one can be justified in introducing this topic and asking students what they believe to be moral and prudent concerning the minimum wage. In doing so, a teacher should present all relevant information. This posting presents some of those relevant facts.

Let's put some of the basic figures concerning the minimum wage into more meaningful quantities. First, the national minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Assuming a worker on minimum wage works a forty hour week, the weekly amount is $290; the yearly rate is $15,080. The highest state minimum wage, in the state of Washington, is $9.32 an hour. Again, under the same assumption, the weekly amount in that state is $372.80; the yearly rate is $19,385.60. The Obama Administration is proposing that Congress pass legislation that would increase the national minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. The weekly amount would be $404; the yearly rate would be $21,008. According to the Federal Register, the poverty level in 2013 for one person is $11,490 a year. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages above the federal minimum. Eighteen states have the federal minimum wage. Five states have no minimum wage law. Four states have a minimum wage lower the federal level. It should be noted that not all workers are covered by the minimum wage law or have a lower rate as is the case for workers who traditionally earn tips (for example, servers in restaurants – the amount varies by state).

Most of the discussion over the minimum wage and the potential consequences of raising it is whether a raise will cause lower employment. The simple reason for this would be that an increase in its cost will engender lower demand for labor. This is a straight supply and demand analysis. But what is often not mentioned is that a lower minimum wage, in real terms, will cause a lower supply of workers. For example, if you are a young person from a modestly well-off family, a too low wage will discourage you from seeking employment. Lower supply encourages higher wages. Now this would be a minimal effect because when we are talking about the minimum wage, we are usually referring to low skilled, entry level jobs and a great many of the people who hold them are the most vulnerable and most needful of employment – they'll seek work at just about any level. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, youth hold about half of the jobs that pay minimum or below minimum wage; the other half are older. About three-fifths of those holding minimum or below minimum wage jobs are in the service industries, mostly in restaurants and food preparation positions. The Bureau is a good source for basic information concerning the minimum wage.¹ The number of jobs affected by raising or lowering a wage rate is called the elasticity of demand for labor, and the number of workers who are willing to work for varying wage rates is called the elasticity of supply for labor.

Raising the minimum wage will have many consequences, some obvious, some not so obvious. For example, Kirk Johnson² reports that Oregon, where the minimum wage is $1.85 higher than in nearby Idaho, is experiencing a large commuting worker force from the lower paying state into Oregon. Of course, that means the supply of workers in Idaho has decreased. On the other hand, Kirk observes that in a particular restaurant, a higher minimum wage meant that the business dismissed the dishwasher and is demanding that its remaining workers work many more hours and have heavier work loads. How does the higher minimum wage affect business activity?

… while some business owners along the border said raising the minimum wage could keep them from adding extra employees, they also said larger economic forces were more important. For example, minimum-wage service jobs in stores, restaurants and motels have boomed on the Oregon side, despite its higher rate, mostly because Oregon has no sales tax.³

One argument for raising the minimum wage is that the extra money goes to low income people who are more apt to spend any extra income. This will increase the circulation of money and increase demand. In turn, that means more business activity. At the same time, as Kirk and others have warned, increased wages will also mean an increase in prices. This is especially true in markets where the businesses operate on small margins (the differences between costs and revenues) or in businesses where there is little competition.

From this short review of some of the facts, for people with no preconceived notion or vested interest, the argument seems heated and unable to be finalized with any satisfaction. Will increasing the minimum wage have a beneficial or detrimental effect on the economy? The countervailing forces seem to indicate the overall effect to be a wash.

All of this, in my mind, just adds further reason to look elsewhere for justifications for or against raising the minimum wage. I will leave this debate for now with one last word: in real terms, we had a much higher minimum wage in previous years during both times of prosperity and in times of recession. Does this just further indicate that any raise in the level, assuming it is under a reasonable amount, will not make much difference to the overall health of the economy, one way or the other? Yet for those who receive the extra pay, it can go a long way in adding to their quality of life and to the opportunities for themselves and their children.

1See http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012.htm .

2Kirk, J. (2014). Crossing borders and changing lives, lured by higher state minimum wages. The New York Times, February 16, pp. 17 and 23.

3Ibid., p. 23.

FINAL GASPS?

It's sad and interesting at the same time. Make no mistake about it; unless some drastic changes take place, we are seeing the death of an institution. If not its death, then its ability to be at all functional, to be viable. That institution is the American public school system. It has several strikes against it, some being systemic. For one, probably most important, it is an institution whose basic foundation goes against the grain of the prevailing economic system – a condition it has suffered since its inception. But this government run institution was able to maneuver around the capitalist environment for over one hundred and fifty years. But the times have been “a'changin” and not in the way the Dylan song referred to back in the sixties. Today, capitalist forces are playing full court offense against any organization run by non-entrepreneurs and the public school system is dead in their sights.

That's the societal level danger that public schools are facing. Now let's look at the institution itself and we do see dire dysfunctions. And in looking at this terminal process, I believe it's best to look at it through a functional approach. Specifically, the public school system is having drastic problems meeting two – at least – essential functions any institution or organization needs to meet: production and adaptability. In terms of schools, production is measured in terms of good citizenship, knowledgeable graduates, and graduation rates. Others add to these measures. They talk of schools helping in lowering crime rates, decreasing unwanted pregnancy rates, bolstering health outcomes, and the like. Some of these are legitimate; they reflect success in meeting the functions I identified above. But we need to be careful. Schools can't do it all. But they should educate in terms of preparing youngsters to be good citizens and employable. Unfortunately, the institution is not “getting it done.” A look at one of these identified measures tells enough of the story.

Graduation rates are appalling. According to Ed H. Moore,¹ CEO of the Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida, three million students find school too burdensome and decide to walk away before graduation – a dropout rate of 8,300 per day. This is magnified in our urban school districts where seventeen of them have an over 50 percent dropout rate (41 percent in our 50 largest urban areas). Even when we feel we can boast – Florida just celebrated a graduation rate of 75 percent – we are still facing one in four students not graduating. For them, the one in four, we are talking about an almost certain life filled with money problems, probably marital problems, probably legal problems, etc., etc. For example, 75 percent of all crimes are committed by dropouts. We know that 90 percent of the jobs in our technically based economy demand that employees have at least a high school diploma. I think it's safe to conclude that our schools are not being productive enough.

As for adaptability, our schools don't seem to be changing fast enough. A lot of sociological (and political science) literature has been dedicated to the need for institutions and organizations to adapt to changes to their internal and external conditions. One such writer is Samuel P. Huntington.² Here is what he points out in terms of what adaptability concerns any institution or organization needs to address in order to remain healthy and even survive into the future. The most obvious concern is change and the rate of that change. Institutions in static environments naturally have an easier job at adapting – there's little need to adapt. But, of course, we are not static. We are dynamic and the rate of dynamism is increasing. This is led by technology. But even in trying to adapt to what is now old technology, such as TV, schools still have not been able to adjust to excessive TV viewing – and its socializing effects – with which most students engage. So here comes the digital world: I phones, texting, YouTube, computer games, on and on, with all their effects. All of these developments have had their negative effects on our ability to teach kids. Yes, there are the positive effects of computers; we'll see how extensive they are. But as of now, the overall effect has been to present schools and teachers with daunting challenges.

We can further analyze this function. As it turns out, according to Huntington, the age of an institution positively relates with the ability of that institution to adapt. The older, the more experienced an institution is, the more likely it is to adapt to new challenges. Huntington identifies three ways to view age.

One is chronological. Here, public schools began somewhere near the middle of the nineteenth century (first system started in Massachusetts in 1821). Since then, the institution has adapted to many changes with varying degrees of success, probably none more challenging than desegregation with which schools are still dealing. While no one would judge the institution a beacon of light when it comes to adaptation, it still kept on functioning in relation to both the demands of the economy and to our social expectations. Some of us can remember when schools were viewed as reasonably successful – perhaps a false image to begin with but an image that perhaps gave the leaders of this institution, years ago, a false sense of invulnerability. Perhaps this level of “success” has been enough to instill an aura of invincibility among the leaders of the institution. If so, then adaptation takes on, for them, a lower level of priority. This is probably not the case now, but I do believe it was the case initially. Be that as it may, this institution today is not adapting successfully and everyone seems to know it. I feel fairly sure that most administrators of our school districts are appreciating the existential challenges they are facing as these newer changes have made themselves known.

A second way to view age is generational. That is, is its personnel turning over with the “right” types of people filling its important roles? This usually applies to leadership roles, but in terms of school, a more important personnel issue has been replacing the talented women who used to see education as that rare area of employment that society deemed acceptable for women to pursue. Of course, that all changed since the sixties and the rise of the women's lib movement. Now, all those highly talented women do what men have been able to do all along; that is, seek employment that is self-satisfying and more lucrative. And guess what? For far too many of them, teaching is not that field. And so, an internal change to the institution has been the lack of sufficiently skilled personnel to meet higher demands.

A third way to view age is the functions themselves. Here is where I believe the most challenging changes have taken place. Huntington writes:

Usually an organization is created to perform one particular function. When that function is no longer needed, the organization faces a major crisis: it either finds a new function or reconciles itself to a lingering death. An organization that has adapted itself to changes in its environment and has survived one or more changes in its principal functions is more highly institutionalized than one that has not. Functional adaptability, not functional specificity, is the true measure of a highly developed organization. Institutionalization makes the organization more than simply an instrument to achieve certain purposes.³

This passage hits on an important area of concern that affects schools. The assumption had been, back in the fifties, that schools functioned. They produced; they met their functional niche in our society. But since this demand for education is never satiated – there's always a new generation of youngsters who need to be educated – public officials were ill advised to dump new functions on this institution. And yet that's exactly what they began to do, even though evidence began to mount that indicated the institution was not meeting its initial, specific function.

And so it goes. We are watching the death of what was once a venerated institution. Our public schools are being attacked from all quarters. I even saw a clip where the in-house Fox liberal, Juan Williams, argued for choice – vouchers and charter schools. I will make a prediction: a form of public schools will survive and those schools will resemble public schools in developing countries where only the abject poor attend. These schools will literally be warehouses in which to store poor kids during the day. People with any means will send their kids to publicly subsidized schools that are run by business people, not educators. They will provide what the parents of those students want. In most cases, that is not education, but credentials. It will be only the minority of these schools that will actually educate students. We will have higher graduation rates, but we will not have more education or better citizenry.

1Moore, Ed H. (2014). Let's not endorse and enable failure: Dropping out at 16 is being sentenced to poverty. Tallahassee Democrat, February 11, p. 5.

2Huntington, S. P. (1968). Political order in changing societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

3Ibid., p. 15.

CRYING LESSONS

A few postings ago, I addressed the seemingly liberal tone of this blog. I tried to make a distinction that put this bias in context. I made the case that the blog is not so much liberal as it is more collectivist – as opposed to being individualist – in its treatment of governmental and political affairs, especially as they apply to civics instruction. I pointed out that since major corporations favor conservative policies and they, in turn, foster an individualist bias of their own, my concerns against the effects of corporatist policies cast many of my claims in a liberal posture: by promoting a more collectivist agenda, my arguments tend to favor what has come to be associated with liberal causes. Let me quickly make a clarifying, definitional distinction. By liberal, I mean what has come to be called liberal. In the referred-to posting I used, instead of liberal, the term progressive. In any case, I will admit my own political leaning to be liberal, but probably one that favors the center more than the extreme. I am definitely a collectivist, at least compared to what is in vogue today, but definitely not an extreme one. I am a federalist, in the more philosophic sense.

In the previous posting, to which I am referring, I claimed that there can be positions that are both conservative and collectivist. This posting is dedicated to one such position – one with which I agree. That is, we, as a society, have ignored and treated the most federalist of all unions shabbily. The family has come under severe attack and we are reaping the unfortunate consequences of such treatment. We shouldn't be surprised. With the prominence of the natural rights perspective in our political and social relations, we have found promoting the values necessary to support the family to be intrusive and, in some context, old fashioned. Yet the universal need for strong family structures is true today, is true here, as in any other time and place.

This concern for the family has been a long standing conservative position. I find their approach a bit holier than thou, but I believe they truly feel and believe in the importance of families from a practical, as well as a spiritual point of view. My interest, particularly as it relates to this posting, is on the practical. For you see, those negative consequences I alluded to above have more to do with the fate of our youngsters. All of this came to mind as I read a report by Kay S. Hymowitz.¹ The report reminded me of a time when I happened to mention to my class at Miami Beach High how single parents, especially single moms, were the head of an inordinate number of poverty ridden households. Well, that message hit a tender spot for one of my students who proceeded to take me to task. You see, I was accurate, but unintentionally, I hurt the feelings of a daughter of a single mother. Apparently, they, mother and teenaged daughter, happened to be doing just fine and she took exception to how I depicted such families. I stuttered an apology, and tried to approach the subject more sensitively.

The point is, liberals have been shy about addressing this issue. But the facts are what they are and they include the persistent high incidence of poverty and immobility, both social and financial, among families headed by single mothers. Why is this the case – it's not so bad in other advanced nations. In these other countries, they have much more generous public assistance policies, but is that it? According to Hymowitz, there's more to it than that.

As for the differences that exist between us and these other nations, single parenthood, it turns out, is quite different in the US. Let me mention some of these distinctions: in the US, young women become mothers at younger ages and they live in communities where there are higher incidents of single motherhood. This develops, unfortunately, a sort of norm for such arrangements. Offspring arrive as a result of a lack of using contraception and pregnancy encourages the coupling of young adults that have little going for them besides sexual attraction. These are people who are, for the most part, strangers and who find little to hold them together after the attraction wanes. They have a child, but that isn't enough. It seems that only about a third of such relationships survive through an offspring's fifth birthday. Then we have the following conditions: “multipartner fertility,” disaffected biological fathers – as mothers attach themselves to new partners or fathers begin families with other women – and dysfunctional stepfathers. “There's substantial research showing that stepfathers are sometimes worse than none at all.”² I might be wrong here, but this last point, I think, was the hidden message my student was communicating to me as she objected to my comments so many years ago.

What to do? First, a sober perspective of the situation is essential. We have to hold people accountable and just writing off irresponsible behavior will not do. I know we want to avoid the old days when young girls would just disappear to have out of wedlock babies. But public policy on this front cannot continue to be absent. Can government dictate dating habits? Of course not. But laws and the enforcement of them seem to be reasonable. If a person is responsible for the birth of a child, that person needs to be held, to the best of his/her ability, responsible for taking care of that child. That includes not only mothers, but biological fathers, whether they live with the child or not. And, of probably more importance, our common language should support that people be held to those responsibilities. It should shame those who shirk their responsibilities. And there seems to be hope in that regard. According to Hymowitz, there seems to be a higher level of realization that having a baby outside a meaningful relationship is not a good idea, especially if you're a teenager. As for welfare programs, we should keep them, but we should devise policies that take into account and rectify the disincentives that such government largess promotes. As Hymowitz points out, we might be providing for today's disadvantaged children at the expense of those in the future. As for this last point, I wish I could be more creative and give you a solid way to run productive welfare programs, but whatever expertise I might have lies elsewhere – in civics education.

And as for civics, the chief aim would be to bolster the more responsible language I mentioned above and with it such thinking that would lead to better decisions. This issue should have a place in a civics curriculum. The treatment should take on directly the basic idea that such dysfunctional choices, as having children outside of meaningful relations, have social as well as personal consequences. Instruction should get at the mode of thinking that has led to a certain level of indifference toward this issue. That is the line of thinking that holds we can do what we want to do as long as we don't hurt others – a la the natural rights construct. We should bring this view under severe criticism. Instruction should ask quite seriously: what constitutes hurting others; where's does the line lie between hurting someone and not hurting someone else? Does having children with an attractive person – a person for which one hardly knows or has any binding affinity – constitute moral or prudent behavior? Of course, such a message and questions ensconced in a more general curriculum that repeatedly deals with substantive moral questions would have a greater impact. No, no guarantees, but a general moral tone that encourages more responsible thinking and considerations can become one of those cultural expectations that do have a positive impact. We know that what we teach in schools has an effect. We also should know that what we don't address in school, if it relates to those predisposed desires we all share, in effect, gives related behaviors a green light.

1Hymowitz, K. S. (2014). How single motherhood hurts kids. The New York Times, February 9, Sunday Review section, p. 5.

2Ibid.

A TRUER COMPARISON

Recently in the national media there was a certain discussion about whether current calls for increasing taxes on the rich, the one percent, are comparable to what the Nazis did to the Jews in the late 1930s. Specifically, there was a reference to Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass – when the Nazis launched a coordinated attack on Jewish establishments throughout Germany and parts of Austria. The attacks were conducted during the night and were characterized by the resulting broken glass from Jewish businesses and synagogues. Besides being a tasteless comparison, I believe a better comparison would have been to the French Revolution. I must admit, I never read the A Tale of Two Cities – I saw the movie. And as in the case of Les Miserables, the story graphically depicts the plight of the lower classes in pre-revolutionary France as being extremely desperate. The system, in terms of both the government and non-government, was totally dedicated to the benefit of the upper classes – royalty and the aristocracy. This exploitation continued until the lower classes had had enough and those in power, both in and out of government, paid a heavy price. Many actions of the Revolutionary government, headed by the Jacobins, went overboard – we all have seen renderings of the guillotines – but that amount of built up hatred toward their one percent found its release. You see, and I'm just speculating, the reference to Kristallnacht, instead of the French Revolution, was favored because in the case of the Nazis, their tyranny was based on a more unreasonable motivation. They were expressing an extreme form of tribalism in an industrial nation. While we can condemn the excesses of the Revolution, we can more readily understand its origins. Now, I'm not saying the French Revolution is an equitable comparison with what is going on today – it's not – but it did pit those who lacked economic resources and all that that entails with those who had extreme wealth. We're not there yet, but we are drifting in that direction, a direction where a very few own just about all there is.

That is, income and wealth mal-distribution are legitimate issues for government to address. If we listen to the political right, there seems to be a lack of understanding of this whole concern. They talk as if any mention of it is an exercise in class warfare, whereas dealing with it might very well avoid real class warfare. The right likes to support its contention with a variety of evidence – some true, some out of context, and some just plain inaccurate.

Citing our founding fathers, specifically Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, is among this evidence. In the case of Madison, we have his writings including a source I have cited in past postings: Federalist Paper Number 10. For example, there is the following:

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

The italicized sentence above – not italicized in the original – is of particular favor among conservatives.¹ It speaks to their desire to convince us that there is no communal bias in our constitution. After all, Madison didn't get the moniker, Father of the Constitution, for no reason and any bias he were to express is, therefore, a fundamental constitutional principle. But of course, all of this is taken out of context.

Remember, Madison didn't write the Constitution all by himself. The Constitution itself, even, is not in effect because it was written by those who attended the Constitutional Convention. It is in effect because the members of the separate Ratifying Conventions in the several states voted for it. And there is ample evidence that the collective wisdom of those founding fathers was highly in favor of a communal view of government and society. After all, federalism is not an individualistic view; it is a congregational view of government. It is a compromise between individualism and communalism. And if one reads the Constitution with this more nuanced eye, it makes a whole heck of a lot more sense.

Let's look at what a present day expert has to say about Madison:

[Madison] believed that the preservation of people's “different and unequal faculties of acquiring property” was “the first object of government,” but that a too-powerful government could undermine that goal. He was, therefore, more concerned with abuses of legislative and executive power than of unregulated commercial power.²

Jeffrey Rosen, CEO of the National Constitution Center, in this cited article, goes on to argue that a shortsighted aspect of Madison's concern was the potential power of national, private interests such as transnational corporations. Madison, though, when one takes in the whole sense of this paper, is concerned with excessive power in the hands of any one actor or group of actors. Madison just did not see the potential of transnational corporations that exist today – hence, his oversight. Rosen, particularly, is focused on the ability of the likes of Google and Facebook to gather and sell our private information. My concern, here, is that a reliance on Madison's thoughts concerning the rights of private concerns when it comes to wealth distribution in our times is a reliance on ideas taken out of context.

First of all, the history of government up to that time was not one of a power exercised to represent or advance the interests of the non-elites. Government, in the minds of Madison and Jefferson, was a force to represent the interests of the rich or the landed or both. There were no public welfare programs; there were no public health facilities, and there were no jobs programs or employment training efforts paid by the public treasury. The abuse came about when government was used to protect and advance the interests of the well-heeled. This is a practice not foreign to us today. It was that type of abuse that the founding generation was concerned with unless we're talking about those who benefited. It was that type of abuse, to unrelenting degrees of exploitation, that led to the French Revolution and our republic was to be a model of governance that would be able to avoid such abuse.

And let me add another word. A recurring charge by the right is that those who favor welfare or higher taxes on the rich or who favor programs such as Social Security, Medicare, or the Affordable Healthcare Act are seeking policies that aim at “equal results” – that is, they want a socialist regime to take hold. In the main, this is not true.³ What those who support these policies are serious about providing is not equal results, but equal opportunity. These are policies that address those conditions that stand in the way of less advantaged people having a real shot at the American Dream. Those who oppose them are either against equal opportunity or they have an unrealistic view of what it takes to provide it for the majority of those in the lower classes. And what is asked for will not result in anything like what faced the deposed elites of Jacobin France. What is asked for is a fair tax policy, one that asks more from those who get more for the betterment of all.

1See, for example, Limbaugh, D. (2010), http://ricochet.com/main-feed/What-Does-Madison-Teach-Us-About-Wealth-Redistribution .

2Rosen, J. (2014). Madison's privacy blind spot. The New York Times, January 19, Sunday Review section, p. 5. This article argues that the Constitution has a deficiency and therefore needs amending. That is, it should have the expressed power to limit the power of private entities to gather and distribute private information of individuals similar to the constitutional prohibition against government to do so.

3I write “in the main” because there are socialists in this country, but they comprise a very small minority among those on the left.

A BETTER WAY?

I have during the history of this blog ascribed to our constitution an almost sacred quality. That is, as the basic compact between all Americans, it is a solemn agreement in which we federate ourselves with each other. But, for all that “sacredness,” it can be changed. Not easily, but we can either add some provision or we can delete some provision. My purpose here is not to go over the long and arduous process by which changes can be made, but to write about how a civics teacher can instruct students about the purpose of amendments to the Constitution.

The teacher can present students with proposed amendments and have students analyze them, determine the purpose of a given proposed amendment, evaluate it, and perhaps alter it to conform with what the students believe would be a better amendment. I would begin with a bit of advice I heard a long time ago (I think I heard this when I was high school). The advice is: when confronted with a proposed change to the Constitution, first say no and then look into it. That is, be disposed to reject our constitution; history has shown it works pretty well as it is. But from time to time, either structural and/or procedural governmental problems develop or problems with citizenship or voting rights arise, or it could be a problem with the relationship between the states. There are probably other sorts of problems that only a change to the Constitution will fix, but these are the types of problems that call for an amendment. And people engage in proposing new amendments all the time. Currently, there is a so-called 28^th Amendment movement calling for a provision which mandates that the members of Congress be equally subject to the laws they pass. Without exemption, those who pass laws might be more careful about the effects those laws might have on the rest of us – or so the thinking goes. So, in this posting, I will present two proposed amendments that are aimed at addressing current problems. They are examples of the type of proposals teachers can present to students. I will add that they are not proposals I would necessarily vote for, but I think an argument can be made for both of them.

Before presenting these proposals, let me remind you that I am not a constitutional scholar or constitutional lawyer, so the language I am using should not be seen as being adequate to the task. I am also not claiming they are optimal in terms of what they are suggesting as to the structural changes they would implement – as a matter of fact, what they suggest could be part of what students could determine is wrong with them. But despite all that, here they are:

Proposed amendment one,

1 - Upon the recorded agreement by twenty percent of the combined number of electors – known as voters – from the various state voter registries for a proposed national law, both houses of Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate) shall take up the proposed measure, as written and presented, for a vote of approval or disapproval within six months of its presentation to each body. If the proposed law is agreed upon by the houses of Congress and signed into law by the President, the proposal shall be statutory law.

2 - State legislatures shall enact legislation empowering appropriate state officials to provide federal government officials with voter related information necessary to administer this provision.

3 - This provision will be administered by the federal Department of State.

4 - Congress shall enact necessary legislation to implement this provision.

As suggested above, students will be asked to analyze this proposal and determine what current problem(s) this proposal is meant to address. I will share with you that the ongoing inability in Congress to pass any meaningful legislation spurred the idea of this amendment. What do you think? Is the current intransigence we see in Congress bad enough to call for such an amendment? And if so, is this the solution? Will it cause other problems? Is it too expensive a solution? These are the types of questions students can tackle and to which they can derive answers.

Proposed amendment two:

1 - The power to administer national elections is vested in a national election commission. The commission is comprised of seven members. The commission is to:

administer federal government's duties related to the election determining the members of the Congress, the President, and the Vice President;

determine the boundaries of the Congressional districts; and

administer a non-partisan informational and promotional program to encourage active participation on the part of the citizenry.

2 - The electoral commission is comprised of members who serve seven year terms and will serve as long as they maintain lawful status. The terms of members will be established as staggered with one new member selected every year. Each member is selected by one of various bodies consisting of the House of Representatives, the Senate, the President, the Supreme Court, the chief officer of the Department of State, the chief officer of the Department of Justice, and the active members of the sitting electoral commission.

3 - Members of the election commission are limited to one full term of seven years. Those initial members whose terms are fewer than seven years can be reappointed for one full term.

4 - Congress shall pass necessary legislation to administer this provision.

For this second proposed amendment, a useful line of questioning could be initiated if the teacher asks: whose power will be affected if this change were put into effect? For example, by a national body determining the composition of Congressional boundaries, state legislatures will be deprived of a very coveted power. They exercise this power every ten years after the national census. Many believe that the current inability to get things done in Washington is to a significant degree caused by how these boundaries are drawn. This was demonstrated in the 2012 election when the Democrats garnered a million more votes than Republicans in House elections, but still couldn't get control of that body. Hence, we still have divided government and we still have stymied policy makers. And another line of questioning might be about how much power a given executive administration has, under the provisions of the amendment, to determine who shall serve on the commission. Perhaps the administration should have only one choice in a given cycle and have the commission made up of five members instead of seven and have five year terms. This change to the change would have meaningful implications.

This exercise of thinking up proposed amendments is great fun. Try it. Just remember to first say no to each proposal that occurs to you.