THE DISCIPLINE OF REFLECTED ARGUMENT (pt. 1)

This blog is currently reviewing an instructional approach that is congruent with (not necessary to) a civics education course of study founded on federation theory.  Philip Selznick[1] provides a useful list of qualities upon which reasoned arguments are based.  He calls them the five pillars of reason.  The qualities are order, principle, experience, prudence, and dialogue.  Each will be explained, but first one is well served by seeing the significance of these qualities.  They are the disciplines of reason. 

When confronted with an argument, one can use these qualities to judge the viability of the argument.  Arguments are the product of performed skills.  For these skills, one can utilize the elements identified in the model developed by Stephen Toulmin.[2]  They are developing and devising the following:  evidence, warrant, support for warrant, qualifiers, reservations, and conclusion.  Each of these elements presupposes a person to perform a task – to activate a skill – to accomplish the element.

More on this later, but, for now, the topic is Selznick’s qualities.  Each can be referred to as a discipline.  The definitions of these disciplines are:

·        Order:  This discipline calls on a person to be able to functionally objectify the information relevant to the essence of an argument.  In turn, this discipline calls on the person to keep in check any emotions, rhetoric, prejudices, or inclinations that hamper an objective-based analysis and determination as to the value of the information.

·        Principle:  This discipline calls on a person to keep in focus ultimate goals of the argument-formation process.  “Reason is end-centered:  the fate of comprehensive or long-term objectives is always to be kept in mind, always open to intelligent assessment.”[3]  This discipline needs further elucidation as hinted at below under the definition for prudence.

·        Experience:  This discipline is the willingness to subject formed hypothesis to experience – empirical information.  This experience comes in varies forms but is most explicit when derived from experimentation.  Having said that, most citizens will not conduct experiments, but can review historical information from reputable historians, journalists, and other researchers who enjoy positive reputations among legitimate reviewers of such material.  It should be remembered by the reader; all knowledge is historical in nature.

·        Prudence:  This discipline calls on a person to demand a critical review of any derived theories or models against ongoing experience.  It is what Selznick calls “practical wisdom” and while reason is end-centered, it favors the continuum of means and ends as when one looks beyond rules to the reasons for those rules.

·        Dialogue:  This discipline calls for a person to honor diversity of ends in terms of both goals and understandings held by others.  This honor is acted upon by engaging with others in mutual efforts by honest agents toward seeking truth and/or prudent policy.

Hopefully, the reader can deem, after reflecting on these qualities or disciplines why the instructional approach favored here can be named historical-based dialogue.

          Below, each of these disciplines will be further explained, but first a word of context is offered.  As indicated above, this review will dedicate some concern over the structure of good arguments.  Why?  When one considers the study of government and civic affairs, much of it is involved with making and judging arguments.  Most of that is about what constitutes good policy; should the government do this or that? 

So, something a civics teacher should try to instill in students, regardless of the instructional approach he/she utilizes, is the wherewithal to determine whether an argument is sound and reasonable.  As Philip Selznick[4] points out, this does not mean that arguments should follow the tenets of rationalism in which all but reason is used to construct and accept an argument. 

There is room for emotions in good arguments but, as the following will indicate, one needs to be disciplined in the use of reason and emotions as well as relying on religious or other philosophic beliefs.  All behaviors or the formulation of any beliefs begin with an emotion that motivates the person to act or think in a given way.

Relevant to these concerns is the legitimization of a certain type of argument.  It has been mentioned earlier that some argument or position is a radicalization of some theory or ideology; that is, that the particular belief or claim of knowledge is held to be true and should trump all other considerations.  The problem with such arguments is that they assume perfect knowledge, something at which humans have proven to be quite deficient.  “Ain’t nobody perfect.”

          This account will, over the following descriptions, delve into each of these disciplines and then meld them with the skills – ala Toulmin – of reasoned argumentation.  This posting will address the first of these disciplines, order, and follow up in the next posting(s) with the rest.

          Order – Good arguments do rely on reason – the quality in which one attempts to consider evidence in a dispassionate way.  What that basically means is that one should exercise a considered restraint on emotions, the rhetoric of others – and of oneself – and any preconceived biases or inclinations. 

This denotes a slowing down or allowing enough time to reflect, to put things – ideas or objects – in logical order.  Selznick quite rightly points out that this discipline needs to be extended not only to the consideration of means toward some ends embedded in some argument, but to the ends themselves.

One of the problems of ideologies is that they tend to proffer their vision or belief of the right/correct life and yet, under such a posture, ideologies fall short of reflecting life or other aspects of realities in what one could deem as totally true.  There is always some mistake as to what is claimed to be reality. 

This is not only the case of some belief based on religion or some philosophy (such as Marxism), but also on a belief based on science.  One simply doesn’t know it all.  So, the discipline of order must account for this: a structural imbedding of doubt and of thinking and having to decide in terms of probabilities, not certainties.  And even when the knowledge proves to be sound, it offers a view of what is less than totally consistent and dependable or totally free of obstacles.  Selznick writes:

People are “reasonable” and show “good sense” when they accommodate their goals to what the world is like.  They seek change within a framework of limited alternatives and necessary trade-offs.  This ambient order, properly understood, is not an alien system of domination.  It is the world to which we belong, on which we depend, of which we are integral parts.[5]

Order leads us to think in terms of frameworks, not technical manifestos or social architecture.  It also avoids discrete values or goals, such as profits or payloads, as be-all aims of any effort.  One sees this type of offense when considering the modern corporate structure in which the goal of maximizing profits for shareholders becomes the trumping goal for just about any business decision a corporation makes – such as providing sub-living wages to workers.  This reflects the type of thinking in which rationality is divorced from reason.

In federation theory, it has been argued here that the trump value of that normative theory is societal wellbeing.  Is this not another case in which rationality outstrips reason?  The claim here is that it is not.  For one thing, societal wellbeing is not a discrete value; it is a general value subject to interpretation. 

The argument allows for diverse options and part of this theory in guiding civics curricular choices is not to indoctrinate students, but to facilitate those inquiries that might lead to the benefits of our common welfare.  The student so led, though, must be encouraged to practice and gain proficiency in the exercise of order in attempting such endeavors.

The next posting will pick up on these descriptions and begin with the discipline, principles.

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[1] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

[2] Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (London, England:  Cambridge University Press, 1969).

[3] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community, 59.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., p. 58.

A PROGRESSING PROCESS

This blog has spent a great deal of space on what direction civics education should take.  It has introduced an approach in selecting civics content by describing and explaining a mental construct designed to guide educators in that pursuit.  That construct – federation theory – has its origins in the colonial period of this nation. 

The blog has offered, as part of that construct, a moral code and a model of how the construct is “activated.”  This latter element attempts to give a dynamic sense of how the theory accounts for the way a federated collective meets a political challenge. 

As of the last several postings, the blog has shifted emphasis and is now attempting to convey which instructional approach is most congruent with the content of this approach.  While this writer has made it clear that the use of federation theory does not insist on an instructional sequence of activities, it does logically point to behaviors one can associate with the ideals and ideas the model and moral code highlight.

The title of this approach – historic-based dialogue – will be explained in the next posting, but first a contextual concern needs to be addressed.  This approach is a developmental approach; that is, the process outlined develops within an academic course.  It changes in its specifics as students become, hopefully, more sophisticated, vis-à-vis the content.  What is described here will assume a certain amount of familiarity by students with what this instructional approach is attempting to accomplish.

          In this vein, to specify what exactly the methodology prescribes, one needs to see where in a unit of study a chosen topic is scheduled.  In terms of the topic identified in the last posting, foreign trade, it would fall in that portion of the course that deals with how an interest group interacts with the government or how the nation conducts itself as it interacts with other nations. 

In an earlier posting, this writer identified a course of study that would be suitable for a course that opted federation theory as its guiding construct in determining content.  To remind the reader, here is how that course is outlined with a listing of consecutive units and how each relates to a social capital issue – issues that would be highlighted by a federation theory foundation:

•         The individual – short term interests vs. long term interests

•         The family – the effects of divorce or single parent parenting

•         The neighborhood – responsibilities toward problem children

•         A small business – treatment of employees

•         A labor association (such as a union) – efficiency and quality issues vs. worker interests

•         A large corporation – product safety

•         A local government (either city or county) – zoning or racial/ethnic divisions

•         Law enforcement agency – judicial rights applicable to an accused

•         White House – leadership that advances social capital

•         Congress – the extent that money (in the form of donations) is influential

•         The courts – the role of interpreting constitutional principles as expressions of social capital

•         Society during wartime – special demands on citizenship

•         International associations – global efficiencies vs. maintenance of a living wage

This listing was offered as a suggestion, but what should be pointed to is that the progression attempts to begin with more attention to issues that a secondary student might find relevant.  For example, if a teacher chooses divorce or single parenthood issue, this is chosen for students that have a high incidence of one and/or the other situation.

Back to the challenge addressed presently, if a teacher were to choose foreign trade as a topic, then that topic would probably be inserted at that point of the course that would correspond to the slot taken by “a labor association.”  It could also be inserted in the slot dedicated to international association.  It should be remembered that the topic was chosen because of the effect such trade has on equal opportunity and income distribution – two concerns that have high relevancy qualities for many students and communities.

This is pointed out to indicate that the unit in question would probably be administered either roughly one third of the way into the course or at the end of the course.  For the purposes of this demonstration and to be able to describe the full extent of the development of this strategy, the choice here will be the end of the course.  This adds a burden, in that, the more a topic is removed from the students’ environment, the more difficult it is to make it relevant in terms of their perceptions.

But, such timing would relate to a course development in which students would be familiar with the goals of the course, would have had the opportunity to practice the skills the process outlines, and are prepared to engage in a debate.  By that time students know that they are to formulate positions regarding political, economic, and/or social conditions that pose a political challenge to an association, which is a collective exhibiting federalist mode of operation.  Hopefully, and it will be assumed, that they are able to participate in a somewhat formal debate.

In terms of the total course, this development is to advance by students, at the beginning of the course, engaging in discussions.  This is followed by students participating in arguments or the development of arguments.  In the final phase, students compete in, to some degree, formal debates. 

This development is one that has students, during the arguing stage, choose between offered opinions, usually between two polar-opposite opinions that address a chosen topic.  The goal in this initial phase would be to have students identify and defend supportive data – factual information.

In the second phase, students argue a position that should be more specific than one in which they espouse by expressing a broader opinion.  This is of course, to a great degree, determined by the questions asked by the teacher.  The general aim should be to ask questions that get students to be more concrete and policy directed:  should the government do X or Y or, as the students become more sophisticated, Z or be able to choose from even more options.  In terms of foreign trade, an example would be:  should the US manipulate the value of its currency to help its balance of trade with other countries?

In the final phase, the one that would align with the final unit, students take on the responsibility to conceptualize the issue area into subtopics and policy considerations.  This is more complex and a teacher should exercise judgement as to what his/her students are prepared to do as the course evolves over the term(s).  In all of this, the process is organized by what constitutes a logical argument.

The next posting will address what makes up a sound argument and introduce the notion that this process is based on what is believed to be the elements of effective debating strategies.  For this purpose, that posting will rely on the work of Stephen E. Toulmin.

THE OTHER ANGLE

In this report on the development of a unit of study – an account that started two postings ago – there are two angles that need to be addressed.  This account has begun addressing the first one – the substance or scope – by identifying the issue under consideration:  foreign trade.  The reason for this choice was that it relates to federalist values in that foreign trade has had, in the last few decades, an effect on equal opportunity in this country.  The other angle is the sequence or instructional process that will be used in the resulting unit.

          On this score, this blog has reported a bit of history.  That is that under the movement, beginning in the 1960s, of the New Social Studies, the field attached itself to something called the inquiry approach.  This has taken several turns since its inception – the in-term now is critical thinking – but its essence is that students need to discover content – generalizations, principles, explanations – instead of being told what it is.  The bias is toward discovery not didactic lecturing.

          For reasons already described, the initial thrust of this movement was heavily skewed toward scientific protocols; i.e., the so-called scientific method.  The fact that this effort began in the wake of the Sputnik surprise is not accidental.  Since then, there have been other instructional methods that have been introduced.  One method this blog has highlighted is the jurisprudential approach introduced by Donald Oliver and James Shaver.[1] 

What is offered here is reliant on Oliver and Shaver, but there is a more developed effort to define those concerns that serve to underpin what is being offered in way of an instructional process.[2]  The earlier material relied on the too open-ended concept of “constitutional values.”  It seemed that those efforts relied heavily on a concept, an American dilemma, offered by Gunnar Myrdal,[3] and on court decisions to define what should be addressed and how it should be addressed.

This was in the wake of the Warren Court’s liberal interpretations of both individual rights and group rights such as in the decisions affecting discriminated racial and ethnic groups.  Here the effort, by a reliance on federation theory, is based on at least an initial and well-directed sense of what constitutes constitutional values by offering a firm sense of where they come from – a long-standing perspective that traces its roots to the colonial days of the nation. 

By relying on federalist theory, this effort will be more directed as to what should be included and what should not.  It also offers a more directed sense of what questions any ensuing inquiry should ask.  What remains is an overall model of instruction to provide a methodological guide as to how a teacher should organize his/her efforts in the classroom.  But this model should not be an essential element in incorporating federation theory.

This writer has made the claim in this blog that the use of federation theory does not insist that a teacher use any one instructional method.  A teacher who lectures or leads students in an inquiry exercise or any other method can use federation theory since that theory is aimed at choosing content not determining teaching styles.  This writer has a definite belief regarding this issue.  He believes that insisting on a style is counterproductive as it could be a turn-off to those teachers who do not use the anointed style.

Further, teaching is a personal activity; how a teacher teaches reflects his/her personality.  When an approach dictates a style that is at odds with what a teacher does in the classroom, then it adds a whole other burden to that approach.  Experience has shown, that by doing so, it can be the death knell of such an approach.  Teachers who do not feel comfortable with the proposed style will simply not use it.

That was the history of what happened to the inquiry method.  It can even be a source of rancor among teachers that otherwise are getting along.  So, what is offered in this posting and subsequent postings is a suggestion, not a list of instructions. 

By saying a substantive model is open to be used by any style of teaching, though, is not to say one style of teaching is not more conducive than another style.  This would be the case for any content model.  The content is going to point to a communication mode over others.  If federation theory highlights certain activities among citizen, then it is naturally biasing those activities. 

Specifically, if to federate means citizens define their status as a member of a community that interacts, then how citizens interact will be noted by a content model that highlights that interaction.  And, in the case of federation theory, that mode happens to be one in which citizens discuss, argue, and debate the issues of the day.

This writer’s favorite depiction of that activity is offered by Tocqueville (see posting entitled, “An Early Hero:  Tocqueville”) and to get a taste for this, a look at a portion of that writer’s description is helpful:

It is not impossible to form an imaginary picture of the surpassing liberty which the Americans enjoy; some idea may likewise be formed of the extreme equality which subsists amongst them.  But the political activity which pervades the United States must be seen in order to be understood.  No sooner do you set foot upon the American soil than you are stunned by a kind of tumult; a confused clamour is heard on every side; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand the immediate satisfaction of their social wants.[4]

Can a teacher recreate, within reason, this form of “clamour” in the classroom?

          The next posting will introduce a new approach that builds on this type of interchange.  This writer calls it “historic based dialogue.”  It will be an instructional approach that does not count on the scientific method, citizens don’t conduct experiments or conduct survey research when they “talk” politics or reflect on what the government is up to.  Instead, they engage in discussions, arguments, and/or debates.  These are the type of activities historic based dialogue calls on students to perform.

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[1] Donald W. Oliver and James P. Shaver, Teaching Public Issues in the High School (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1966) AND Fred M. Newmann, and Donald W. Oliver, Clarifying Public Controversy:  An Approach to Teaching Social Studies (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company, 1970).

[2] The reader can review the work of Oliver, Shaver, and another collaborator, Fred Newmann and judge whether, from a substantive perspective, those theorists provide sufficient guidance to teachers.  While this writer is a fan of their work, in trying to apply their theory, this writer – as a teacher – had to fill in a lot of substantive content.

[3] Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New York, NY:  Harper and Brothers, 1944).

[4] Alexi de Tocqueville, “Political Structure of Democracy,” in Alexis de Tocqueville:  On Democracy, Revolution, and Society, ed. John Stone and Stephen Mennell (Chicago, IL:  Chicago University Press, 1980/1835), 78.

SETTING THE STAGE

This posting is the first of a series in which the writer is going to, in real time, develop a unit of study.  The unit will be, appropriately enough for this blog, a civics unit.  The planning will attempt to apply federation theory as a social construct.  As such, the theory will guide the writer in his choice of content.  This effort/experiment, as just mentioned, is in real time.  That is, he will conduct some research between postings regarding the topic and attempt to incorporate what he has found out in the next posting.

          The writer has done this sort of thing plenty of times, but never in a public forum such as this blog.  He, of course, planned countless units and lessons as a classroom teacher and even got paid to do it as a consultant for one or two organizations.  Since this is a demonstration of how the process works for him, he will make several assumptions. 

One, the initial knowledge of history and the social sciences he will use in this development exercise is what he believes the typical social studies teacher already knows.  He might cite a source that he is aware of to further bolster a point, but unless attributed to the Alden source below, it is general knowledge.

          Two, all other knowledge that the writer will incorporate is contained in one source:  Failure to Adjust:  How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy by Edward Alden.[1]  This would not be the case in “real life” and the writer would use a variety of sources such as news accounts and journal articles – he might use a film (a documentary) and even literature such as a novel.  Of course, the attempt would be to use reputable sources unless a special purpose was to report what public opinion is about the topic.

          So, with those introductory words, the process begins by first identifying the topic and reporting why it was chosen.  The topic is foreign trade and how it has affected the fate of significant number of Americans.  As was previously explained, most topics that federation theory would guide an educator to pursue will be a concern reflecting an equality issue.  This is not always the case, but chances are if a unit developer uses federation theory, that will be the overall concern.  That is the case with foreign trade as will be explained.

          A typical understanding of American history reveals that this was not so much a dominant area of concern as the nation approached World War II.  The US economy, in those years, was only involved in foreign trade at a rate of less than 10 percent of GDP.  Oh, years prior to the beginning of the Civil War there was a heavy reliance on imports and the South’s economy was almost totally dependent on exporting cotton.[2]  But the Civil War and the rise of industrialization changed the economy profoundly and by the end of the 19^th century to about the end of the thirties (of the 20^th century), the US had become an autarky.

          A what?  This is a new term for the writer as well.  An autarky is an economy that is totally or just about totally self-reliant.  The American people just about provided all its natural resources, just about produced all they consumed, and just about provided all the labor they used to produce what they needed or wanted.  The writer’s general knowledge also tells him that World War II caused certain processes and developments to take place and change the conditions that existed before the war.  In the ensuing years, the US shed its autarky status.

          As early as 1944 (before World War II ended) there was the Bretton Woods Conference and it was conducted to establish international agreements that had profound effects on foreign trade and the US participation in it.  This is an item that needs further investigation. 

The writer is also presently aware that since the US was the only leading industrial nation not suffering from extensive damage due to the war, it had to take the lead in reestablishing the industrial capacity of those other nations that were extensively affected by the destruction of the war.  The industrial capacity of those nations was severely curtailed.

This led to a general trend toward liberalization of trade polices among nations.  Generally, that meant that nations lowered tariffs, the tax that is placed on imports, loosened trade restrictions, and was to institute floating currencies – that is, the value of any currency was to be set by market forces. 

This last move is very important since all trade is conducted by the currency of the selling nation.  If someone in Japan wants to buy a Chevy (ha, ha), he/she needs US dollars (or his or her agent needs US dollars) to buy that Chevy.  That is of course if the Chevy is made and/or sold from a US car company.  Therefore, the exchange rate of that currency affects what the buyer pays.

To get back to liberalization, what was to be set up was a global system in which buyers and sellers of finished products, intermediate products (parts, tools, and trade services), and labor could be bought, hired, or leased across borders with increasing ease.  The new set of policies – international agreements – paved the way.

This whole development was magnified many times with advancements in technology especially in terms of communication, transportation, and those technologies that assist the processes from production to legal services.  The role of the computer – introduced since World War II – is central.  Someone who gives a good accounting of all this is Thomas Friedman.[3]

Things, given the conditions of the post war period and the advantaged position of the US, was going along swimmingly for about two decades.  Then, things began to go in the wrong direction for the US – at least for segments of the US economy.  Chief among those segments was men who worked at manufacturing jobs. 

Suddenly, with the rise of what used to be called third world countries or countries heavily damaged by the war (e.g., China and Japan), American workers were competing against low wage workers of foreign countries.  And this brings one to what began to change – the introduction of negative conditions – in the late 1960s that interfered with US interests.  A turning point (or year) was 1971.

The first negative condition was just mentioned, expensive labor costs.  This was not bad while the US was an autarky, but times changed.  Just to give the reader an idea, average wages in the US, according to Alden, rose 75% between 1947 and 1973.  Many factors led to this, but chief among them was the rise of labor unions.  Great for workers if they only competed against other high payed workers, but beginning at that time, cheap labor in foreign lands became a factor.

The second condition was that the US was on the gold standard – at about $35 for an ounce of gold – and that made the US dollar a very expensive currency (and made our gold very cheap).  This led to horrific trade imbalances – more on this in future postings.  For now, it should only be noted that this expensive currency made American products expensive in other countries.

So, with cheap currencies abroad (in part due to US dollar being excessively strong), this set up the third condition, increasing imports.  In the 1970s, imports more than doubled.  By the end of that decade, foreign goods and services accounted for about 20% of the US economy.  This was true while US products abroad were not so popular; they were judged to be expensive and not of the best quality. 

One number that stands out is that 20% of US steel consumption by the end of that decade came from foreign producers.  Yet, US produced steel accounted for small consumption levels in other countries.  The same story can be told for textiles, clothing, radios, and TVs.  Subsequent years would see a deluge of foreign cars in the US while American car producers were struggling with inferior models and expensive products. 

And American interests overseas also included the escape of investment capital from the US to other countries.  US investment abroad in the 1960s was less than $34 billion; by 1980 it had ballooned to $216 billion.  A lot of that investment was motivated with the cheaper production costs found on foreign shores.

All this was taking place while real wages in the US first stopped growing and then began to fall, especially among – the reader can guess – male, manufacturing workers.  Overall, several developments were taking place: 

·        the pressures from foreign trade prompted American manufacturers to lower costs in the US (including wages),

·        capital flight relative to prior levels was taking place,

·        and shaky economic conditions that encouraged enormous rise in personal debt would later feed the conditions that caused the Great Recession of 2008.

This, therefore, establishes the stage for studying this topic and reflects what most social studies teachers know of the topic area before any real research of the topic occurs.  The big question is:  given the advantages the US enjoyed at the beginning of the 1960s, how did it let things get so bad that not only the Great Recession took place, but has led to the civic turmoil the nation is currently facing?  To repeat:  stay tuned.

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[1] Edward Alden, Failure to Adjust:  How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy (Lanham, MD:  Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2016).

[2] Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton:  A Global History (New York, NY:  Alfred A. Knopf, 2014).

[3] Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat:  A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).

A BIT OF CONTEXT

This blog is about to begin a series of postings that will engage in an exercise that it has avoided up to this point in its history.  It is about to describe an instructional planning effort in which the tenets of federation theory are applied to a contemporary issue and demonstrate how the theory can be utilized.  To begin this effort, it is useful to review what is known about the issue that has been chosen.  And to do that, it is helpful to provide some context.  This later aim is the purpose of this posting.

          To foreshadow this overall effort, the reader should be aware that the final unit of study will portray a bias toward historical research in both its researching of the issue and in what the students will be asked to do in way of classroom inquiry.  So, to put this issue in context, this posting revisits a topic this blog has addressed before.  The following account is taken from a previous posting, “The Economic Face of It.”

In a post financial crisis book, one dedicated to explaining what caused the resulting recession [which began in 2008], William K. Tabb makes an interesting observation.  His use of the concept, social structure of accumulation (SSA), places the importance of a prevailing mental construct at the center of determining how an economy functions:

The social structure accumulation (SSA) framework suggests that periods of growth require a coherent set of mutually reinforcing institutions favorable to capable accumulation.  These involve the creation of relatively lasting accommodations between contesting social forces, including stable understandings between capital and labor, the United States and the rest of the world, capital and the state, capitalists and other capitalists, and citizens and their government.  Institutional stability provides conditions under which the behavior of others, the meaning of events, and the likely outcome of actions can be predicted over the relevant planning horizon with enough confidence to provide consistent expectations, and so encourage investment and promote growth.[1]

In short, economic actors, according to Tabb, need to be sufficiently on the same page in both thought and action.  This can be viewed as reflecting a sufficiently unified mental economic image among these actors.  Short of that, economies suffer from drift and progress is stymied.

There has been a series of SSAs throughout the history of the US.  Tabb’s analysis is focused on what he terms the neoliberal SSA.  It is based on a general acceptance of a libertarian view of government’s legitimate role as being highly limited in the economy.  Historically, it replaced the Keynesian SSA that dominated our economic views from the 1930s through World War II and into the 1960s.  That view legitimized a very strong role for government and led to such policies as Social Security, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and a whole array of regulatory agencies to oversee the economy.  As the 1970s came and went with their inflation and malaise associated with the post-Watergate years and the administration of Jimmy Carter, that SSA fell into disfavor.  Then there was the articulation of Ronald Reagan along with his presidency.  Through the thrust of his policies, we have had the neoliberal view guiding our economic activities up until the financial debacle of 2008.  That span of years saw a high degree of deregulation.  Whether the Great Recession has been enough to dislodge it, is still an open question, but I think the upsurge of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders reflects a higher sense of anger and anxiety among the American people – our collective discontent.  Those are the very emotions that lead to a change in beliefs and actions.

          With this backdrop, the issue of foreign trade and its effects on employment opportunities should be considered.  In the next posting, the year 1971 will be highlighted.  It is that year that certain disruptive conditions to the economy was beginning to be recognized.  Beginning with abandoning the gold standard, what was being understood was that the Keynesian SSA was not meeting the challenges of the changing economic conditions.  It would take another ten years for that SSA to be replaced with the Reaganomics SSA (Reagan took office in 1981).

          Stay tuned.

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[1] William K. Tabb, The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time, (New York, NY:  Columbia University Press, 2012), 25.

REVIEW STATEMENT, AN UPDATE

This blog has reported that current efforts in civics education have been deficient.  This has been reflected by un-civic characteristics of the American public and are evidenced by several problematic indicators.  They include:

·        insufficient levels of government and political knowledge,

·        low levels of political engagement and low levels of political skills,

·        among those who are engaged, high indulgence in what is called extreme politics,

·        low disposition to be engaged,

·        low levels of civility,

·        and high levels of criminal behavior as compared to other nations or to other times in the nation’s history. 

While civics instruction is not the cause of these problems, this writer believes it has been an enabling force. 

In terms of these problems, the blog attributes an enabling functional role to the dominance of the natural rights construct in the choosing of civics educational content.  The natural rights view of governance and politics, which became prominent after World War II, has encouraged a very self-centered view of citizenship.  It has diminished the more communal view, traditional federalism, that was dominant up till that post war period. 

Previous postings have provided a historical account on the origins and manifestations of the natural rights perspective which dates all the way back to the time of the writing of the US Constitution.  It goes on to describe and explain how this view has grown in influence and has in more recent years affected what has been taught in the nation’s civics classrooms.  This has been in terms of both content and instructional processes.

The blog also described and explained the role traditional federalism played by describing its historical importance in the nation’s development.  In so doing, the blog points out that that construct offers those basic ideas and values that serve as a foundation for what is being proposed by this blog – a liberated federalism construct. 

Finally, the blog describes this favored and proposed construct.  It does this by presenting a federalist moral code and a review of a federalist political model.  That presentation proceeds to explain how the model is “activated” by reviewing an area of concern that accounts for most political challenges a federalist approach would address. 

That area of concern is those set of challenges that are a product of inequality as defined by a federalist designation of two forms of equality:  baseline equality and equality of treatment.  This latter form is also known as regulated condition. 

What remains is to take a practical turn in which the blog will demonstrate how the model and its accompany moral code can be used to develop a unit of study.  For the demonstration, this author chooses the issue of foreign trade and its effect on employment opportunities in the US.  This is timely as it was a determining concern in how the presidential election of 2016 turned out. 

Starting with the next posting, the blog will begin by reviewing and developing the social, theoretical view of the issue area in question.  This will incorporate those aspects of federation theory related to the issue area and a more substantive reporting of what constitutes the known aspects of this issue.  For the latter concern, this blog will rely on a recently published work dedicated to this issue:  Failure to Adjust:  How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy by Edward Alden.

If this writer were to develop this unit for his own teaching effort, he would use this source, but would look at other sources as well.  Since this current effort is for demonstration purposes, this will be the sole source.  He will take the information provided by this source and match it up against the concerns that federation theory emphasizes.

After this initial analysis is complete, he will follow the rough material development process outlined by Ralph Tyler[1] which consists of identifying instructional objectives, develop learning experiences, organize learning experiences, evaluate student performance and instructional objectives.  These steps will be loosely followed to explain how the plan is developed.  This will begin with the next posting.

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[1] Ralph W. Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press, 1969/1949).

SOCIAL IMPLICATION OF REGULATED CONDITION

This posting is a continuation of the previous posting.  If the reader missed the last posting, he/she is encouraged to click on to it and get the context of this posting.  Overall, this and the previous entry looks at regulated condition, a form of equality.  The purpose is to see how a liberated federalist model is “activated” and depict how an association, particularly a government, meets a political challenge.

Social Implication – A commonwealth is faced with a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, the inevitable ranking of individuals leads to an uneven distribution of material values.  Such a reality, though, threatens the level of moral equality in the commonwealth – especially if the unevenness is extreme or functions to prohibit others from such advantages. 

Ranking is not only pervasive among societies of all kinds – even among those who set out to abolish such rankings – but it is also readily justified within those societies either directly or through some rationalization.  Calls to end all uneven distributions are unrealistic and attempts will cause unacceptable costs to other values.[1] 

In other words, policies that seek equal results, as is called for by critical theory, would be too costly in terms, not only in funding any resulting programs that seeks to accomplish such equality, but also in other ways as well.  History shows that attempts to even out distributions act to squelch the motivation of those who would otherwise engage in hard, creative work which results in advanced technological and other production oriented activities. 

Selznick points out that the experiences of collectivist societies which have made such attempts to end all uneven distributions have failed miserably due to talent flight or disengagement.  This seems to indicate that such motivation would be squelched.[2]

The key to resolving the tension between equal results and regulated condition is the classic liberal call for equal opportunity.  Selznick describes this value:

No one should be hampered, no door should be closed to anyone, because of a prejudice against that person’s social origins.  Whatever opportunities exist should be open to all without regard to social class or (as later extended) to race, creed, ethnicity, or gender.  Thus equality of opportunity has the limited objective of overcoming prejudice while maintaining the legitimacy of differential rewards.[3]

In short, the focus is on ending any caste elements within the commonwealth.  Affirmative action – proactive government policy that aims at eliminating arbitrary inequality – under a value of moral equality, is limited to certain activities.  They are:

·        identifying and providing appropriate training to those victimized by discrimination;

·        helping members of a discriminated group, or, if efforts are made to assist such victims, demanding evidence that public or private agencies providing such assistance have done so in good faith and have exerted a meaningful effort to rectify past incidents of discrimination by showing actual accomplishments toward those ends that advance federalist equality.

What about those who have not been discriminated against but find themselves unequally treated due to their lack of success in securing financial or material resources?  Selznick calls for helpful efforts be extended to them also because by doing so it would upgrade the group – the collective.  That is, the whole commonwealth is negatively affected by the reality associated with persistent poverty.

Public agencies, such as schools, should provide resources to poorer members of the commonwealth to encourage recipients to be able to compete for the limited material values.  This aim encompasses two ends:  directed assistance to provide the basic requirements of life (food, shelter, etc.) and access to the educational resources that are available to improve the competitive status of the disadvantaged.

The commonwealth would be based on the meritocracy that allows those who produce or have good fortune to benefit from their efforts or luck, but it dismisses as illegitimate the ideal that holds that “winners” are inherently superior.  Inequalities in such a value system – one based on merit – are tolerated because to eliminate them would be costly and impractical and would be disruptive and counterproductive to the general creation of wealth in terms of material and other assets.

Chronic inequality that renders segments of the citizenry to poverty ultimately works to the disinterest of all, including not only the disadvantaged and the discriminated, but the advantaged as well.  Therefore, the moral equality that is sought is based on a reciprocal advantage, not on sympathy, pity, or benevolence.  Under such a system, all should support such “helping” policy because, given an unfortunate turn of events, anyone in the commonwealth could be at the bottom.

This reciprocal relationship among citizens calls on a meaningful reality that, one, allows an opportunity to improve one’s position significantly, and, two, sets up a cooperative mode of social interaction.  It allows for rational decision-making, maximizing one’s benefits and minimizing one’s costs, but is more encompassing than the marginal analysis of the systems approach (which was described earlier in this blog as an element of the natural rights construct).

Selznick writes that this reciprocal relationship considers the potential and often real disruption that the lack of respect and dignity can cause in the social square or arena and the possibility that anyone or anyone’s loved ones can find themselves in desperate and deprived conditions.  The reciprocal relationship of the arrangement has strong support within its logic for a fraternal ethos upon which community can build and a meaningful commonwealth can be maintained.[4]

But there exists under this logic the temptation to see all inequalities as counter to moral equality.  One needs to be clear on the functions of inequality:

Historically there have been four main justifications for inequalities as contributing to the common good.  It has been claimed that inequalities are essential for: (1) effective organization for prosperity, education, public safety, and similar social goals; (2) achievement of excellence and high standards, especially in the realm of “high culture”; (3) protection of freedom, including the freedom to become unequal in possessions and personal attainments; and (4) commitment to ascriptive unities, especially family membership, which depend on recognition of special benefits and privileges.  None of these objectives can justify unlimited or unrestrained inequality.[5]

To summarize: some level of inequality is both practical and moral; i.e., a moral commonwealth should support an elitist element within its midst.  The elites, who are committed to democratic and republican ideals, are those the commonwealth depends upon to lead the pursuit of a moral society under those ideals.

Included in this ideal is the goal of establishing a community in which the elites and non-elites can live in a cooperative venture.  In short, that cooperative effort is to seek equality that restrains arbitrary power, encourages democratic participation, and promotes effective economic opportunity.

An Equality Aim, A Further Implication – This account of federation theory is about what should be taught in civics classrooms, not about constitutional dicta suitable for courtroom argument.  The writer knows his place.  In terms of law, in his humble opinion, the natural rights' manner of defining individual rights is about right; that is, while some things should be changed, even in the direction of federalist thought, by and large a system of laws that supports a more individualistic take on our rights should be sustained.

Legally, one should be able to define basic values and those courses of action one feels are best for his/her individually defined goals.  But such a legal system does not preclude the nation from holding “higher” aspirations for its citizens.  And “higher” is in terms of sustaining the health of the commonwealth.  But, just as those among the citizenry who wish everyone to be religiously moral, few would impose the power of government to enforce such an agenda. 

One can say the same for a law-enforced federalist “theocracy.”  The call is not to jam federalism down anyone’s throat, but for everyone to become aware of its noble history in the development of this nation (including its government and economic system) and its enticing promises to encourage and enable a more communal democracy. 

And that ends this account of how federation theory views government and politics.  What remains is a review of how its adherents would see how its adoption would advance the common good through actual classroom application.  That is the topic that will conclude this presentation of the federation theory construct along with a summary of the blog’s argument to this point.  It will do this by outlining a set of lesson plans that can serve as an example of how federation theory can be implemented.

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[1] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 492.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 499.