Washington DC
Remarks to the Education 301 Class
The George Washington University
Ladies and gentlemen, what has happened to the essential national conversation about equality and efficiency?
Well, the work of the late economist Arthur Okun spoke to me, years ago, when he considered the complex, painful tradeoffs between the forces of equality and efficiency as well as the inherent conflicts between means and ends.
Okun foreshadowed Stanley Huntington’s thesis years later in which liberals and conservatives, somehow, are actually meant to be part of the same societal equation that solves for relative balance between equality and efficiency. The folly of church, monarchical or state authoritarianism through history, as evidenced by Fareed Zakaria in The Future of Freedom, as well the insular machinations of one-party rule in established democracies, is that the necessary tensions between equality and efficiency in Okun’s terms or, in our case, among democracy, capitalism and education often surrender to hubris and greed. In these conditions, the sorely needed intelligent national dialogue is sacrificed, or disguised in a veil of secrecy as if in conversations among Manna, Yashid and the other young women in Azar Nafisi’s Tehran living room (Reading Lolita in Tehran, 2004).
Thomas Sowell would say that Okun’s premise was constrained, as it attempted to balance antithetical tradeoffs. In the laissez-faire spirit of Hayek, Friedman and others, unfettered market efficiencies were thought to lift all boats, but they do not. The "Chicago school of economics" hardly intersected with Chicago’s infamous Robert Taylor Homes, but they were of a piece. Okun deeply respected desirability of well-working markets, as do I, but he rightly warned that excessive catering to one side of the equation, say, the primacy of market efficiency over economic equality – or, better said, real access to economic opportunity – will increase the gap between rich and poor and the tensions among metropolitan, suburban and rural America. Well, color me red and blue! Today, we are witnessing in this country and around the world a staggering, growing gap between rich and poor that, as CNN's Lou Dobbs reminds us, comes at great risk to the middle class.
I’d like to think in Sowell’s unconstrained terms about the goodness or perfectibility of mankind. The romantic notions of Rousseau and Voltaire are enticing, as are the utopian propositions of Sir Thomas More, Plato’s Republic or even with the 1.3 million residents of SecondLife.com. However, sadly, there is no Garden of Eden on Earth, yet; so we remain constrained but not necessarily imprisoned by human limitation.
And that’s what worries me about today’s elites – as it does Zakaria – who we ask to represent the public interest. As Ben Bolger has asked here, who will be our umpires and how do we, as Neil Ferguson’s new book suggests, ensure that umpires don’t then become empires? We’re told to just ask our doctor about a staggering array of new drugs, but as Mary Sally Matiella has asked us here, where do we find trust in the growing empire of corporate medicine? What separates the growth of self-serving corporate interests that, yes – in all too alarming terms – concern Barry Lynn and Dr. Nortin Hadler from the growth of political self-serving? When does education about values become indoctrination about narrow political order? Isn’t that the lesson we heard yesterday from Sir Jeremy Isaacs in World at War?
John Dewey long ago encouraged us to engage in what Robert Heilbroner often called Delphic inquiries, to sort out Arthur Okun’s tradeoffs in an intelligent national discussion that, somehow, transcends arrogance, rancid partisanship and petty interests.
If there are elites today to help lead this discussion, and that question remains open for doubt, I keep waiting for them to emerge from Plato’s allegorical cave to illuminate us in the sunlight of dialogue that honors both equality and efficiency. Thank you.
Remarks to the Education 301 Class
The George Washington University
Ladies and gentlemen, what has happened to the essential national conversation about equality and efficiency?
Well, the work of the late economist Arthur Okun spoke to me, years ago, when he considered the complex, painful tradeoffs between the forces of equality and efficiency as well as the inherent conflicts between means and ends.
Okun foreshadowed Stanley Huntington’s thesis years later in which liberals and conservatives, somehow, are actually meant to be part of the same societal equation that solves for relative balance between equality and efficiency. The folly of church, monarchical or state authoritarianism through history, as evidenced by Fareed Zakaria in The Future of Freedom, as well the insular machinations of one-party rule in established democracies, is that the necessary tensions between equality and efficiency in Okun’s terms or, in our case, among democracy, capitalism and education often surrender to hubris and greed. In these conditions, the sorely needed intelligent national dialogue is sacrificed, or disguised in a veil of secrecy as if in conversations among Manna, Yashid and the other young women in Azar Nafisi’s Tehran living room (Reading Lolita in Tehran, 2004).
Thomas Sowell would say that Okun’s premise was constrained, as it attempted to balance antithetical tradeoffs. In the laissez-faire spirit of Hayek, Friedman and others, unfettered market efficiencies were thought to lift all boats, but they do not. The "Chicago school of economics" hardly intersected with Chicago’s infamous Robert Taylor Homes, but they were of a piece. Okun deeply respected desirability of well-working markets, as do I, but he rightly warned that excessive catering to one side of the equation, say, the primacy of market efficiency over economic equality – or, better said, real access to economic opportunity – will increase the gap between rich and poor and the tensions among metropolitan, suburban and rural America. Well, color me red and blue! Today, we are witnessing in this country and around the world a staggering, growing gap between rich and poor that, as CNN's Lou Dobbs reminds us, comes at great risk to the middle class.
I’d like to think in Sowell’s unconstrained terms about the goodness or perfectibility of mankind. The romantic notions of Rousseau and Voltaire are enticing, as are the utopian propositions of Sir Thomas More, Plato’s Republic or even with the 1.3 million residents of SecondLife.com. However, sadly, there is no Garden of Eden on Earth, yet; so we remain constrained but not necessarily imprisoned by human limitation.
And that’s what worries me about today’s elites – as it does Zakaria – who we ask to represent the public interest. As Ben Bolger has asked here, who will be our umpires and how do we, as Neil Ferguson’s new book suggests, ensure that umpires don’t then become empires? We’re told to just ask our doctor about a staggering array of new drugs, but as Mary Sally Matiella has asked us here, where do we find trust in the growing empire of corporate medicine? What separates the growth of self-serving corporate interests that, yes – in all too alarming terms – concern Barry Lynn and Dr. Nortin Hadler from the growth of political self-serving? When does education about values become indoctrination about narrow political order? Isn’t that the lesson we heard yesterday from Sir Jeremy Isaacs in World at War?
John Dewey long ago encouraged us to engage in what Robert Heilbroner often called Delphic inquiries, to sort out Arthur Okun’s tradeoffs in an intelligent national discussion that, somehow, transcends arrogance, rancid partisanship and petty interests.
If there are elites today to help lead this discussion, and that question remains open for doubt, I keep waiting for them to emerge from Plato’s allegorical cave to illuminate us in the sunlight of dialogue that honors both equality and efficiency. Thank you.