Lots of talk lately has focused on the relative merits or demerits of President Obama’s stimulus plan. People have gone back and forth saying it is too much or not enough, that it will destroy America or save us. In essence this conversation comes down to pitched battle between two of the primary modes of economic thought of the 20th century, Neo-Keynesian economics and Monetary economics as favored by Milton Friedman and the Chicago school.

To oversimplify, Keynesian economics is a demand side philosophy and Monetary economics is a supply side philosophy. Another overly simple explanation of these somewhat opposing schools of thought is that Keynesian economics offers that in times of economic hardship demand must be created by the infusion of cash into the populace by government, creating the ability to purchase, thus creating demand where there was once none, due to lack of available capital in the marketplace. Monetary policy as roughly defined by Friedman advocates that government stay out of the market and that it can be kept solvent by a steady and measured influx of capital from a source outside government.

Another simplistic way of understanding these theories is that Keynesian economics favors government intervention in the market and Monetary policy favors a totally free market. Although Friedman himself was primarily a libertarian his economics have been most recently advanced by conservative republicans such as Reagan and both Bushes. Keynesian economics has been used by most Democrats since Franklin Roosevelt.

The dramatic difference of opinion on the role of government in our economy between these two schools of thought is at the crux of all of the discussions about our current financial crisis. It is like a championship bout is being fought between those who feel government must regulate the market and be active in it when it falters and those who think the market will adjust very well all by itself thank you.

In its extreme Keynesian economics can lead to a socialist state with the government controlling business and in its extreme Friedmanesque economics can lead to a fascist state where business controls the government. Neither extreme is particularly attractive for a democratic republic such as America. Both of these economic systems were designed for the nationalist political systems of the 20th century not a modern global economy. This is why both have struggled in the last 40 years.

Hopefully from the ashes of this battle both of these 20th century modes of economic thought will be adjusted and modified to the degree that a new, 21st century appreciation of economics will emerge that has neither the roller coaster up and down markets that are the hallmark of Keynesianism nor the bankrupting, failed, trickle down, unregulated fiasco that has resulted from our latest venture into Chicago style economics.

It has been said one should trust but verify. Perhaps it is time for a new economics that will do the same, a regulated but otherwise free market for a 21st century global economy. Where are the Keynes and Friedman of this century?

This day, Monday January 19, 2009, as we celebrate the wisdom and work of Martin Luther King Jr., the world awaits the momentous occasion of the inauguration of America’s first black president, Barack Obama. We look forward to this event not simply because he is black but because the world stands on the precipice of great upheaval, economically, politically and socially. President elect Obama (thankfully this will be the last time I must refer to him that way) and his historic election represent in the minds of many Americans a break from the past, from the tired ideas of the 20th century, and hope for the future of not only America but the entire planet.

Perhaps the collective will of humankind is still being heard out there in the vastness of space, where the real decider still awaits our reunion with right thinking and action. Maybe, just maybe, we are finally getting it and are beginning to realize the challenges of the new century can be met with a true 21st century consciousness instead of the worn out world view of those who would still tell us that imperial style world domination is not only possible, but necessary.

Obama is clearly a man for whom history has carved out a place. Yet that place must also be populated with caring, loving human beings who will support him as he strives to carry us into a brighter future, who will give their every effort to seeing to it that all men and women of this fragile planet have every opportunity to live productive and successful lives. This must be done with the utmost respect for everyone, not just the wealthy and powerful, not just the intelligent or connected, but every single person existent.

If we cannot move this nation and the world strongly in this direction I fear the new century will be a short one. The challenges we face are grave and daunting. If we simply hand over the responsibility to this one man, however talented, we will never be able to hand over a better world to our progeny. Mankind is driven to improve, to evolve, yet there are obstacles at every turn. Today, as our new President calls us to give of ourselves back to our communities on this day of service let us redouble our personal efforts to make ourselves better, stronger and more compassionate people.

After all, there is no one else but us who can make a difference.

One of my New Year’s resolutions, among the many I have already broken, was a vow to write more entries into this blog. It’s not easy, seeing as how I only write when I feel I have something of modest significance to say, which isn’t often. It’s nearly the middle of January and I have yet to think of any world shattering prose. To be honest I rarely, if ever, do think of anything likely to change anyone’s heart or mind. However, that should not stop me from trying.

I have several concerns as 2009 begins to settle in and we are merely days from inaugurating a new American President. The first is creeping complacency. Progressives have fought hard working their fingers to the nub to get someone elected who sees America not as a conquering empire but a helpful older brother to the world. My worry is that now that Barack Obama is to be our president there will be a letdown, a relaxing of diligence, similar to a football team playing a lesser opponent who lets down its guard, mails in the effort and gets beaten like eggs for an omelet. We cannot afford to simply breathe a great sigh of relief and go back to our daily lives content that because we have our man at the top everything will magically be wonderful again.

There are still issues which have uphill struggles if they are to come to pass. Single payer universal health care, instant runoff voting and the establishment of strong local sustainable economies all have many detractors and need our best efforts to make them realities. They will not just happen by themselves as we drive our Priuses to the co-op. A redoubling of our efforts is needed if these progressive policies that will help people’s lives are to come to pass. Get cracking people.

Another thing that worries me (yes, even though I am an optimist I have plenty of worries) is the fact that deep partisanship is so firmly entrenched in our legislatures, both state and federal. Even though the times call for strong bi-partisan leadership to carry us through the hard times we face and which lie ahead of us I fear that small minded people in government will continue to fight the creation of policies that must be instituted if we are to avoid great pain for many Americans.

I can easily imagine obstructionist legislators fighting tooth and nail to prevent the level of government investment in our infrastructure needed to both infuse the economy (read people) with money to circulate and pull us out of the stagnation we are sliding into and refurbish the physical foundation upon which that economy depends for its lifeblood. I hope this is not the case, but it seems that too many of our leaders still model the corporate world when it comes to visionary thinking and only look to quick fixes and easy solutions which have no political ramifications for their puny careers.

Join me in continuing to fight the good fight, in resisting complacency, and in keeping our leaders feet to the fire as we navigate the very rough waters into which we sail. Society as we know it hangs in the balance. Don’t let our progeny down.

As I sit today pondering the delights of the holiday I cannot help but wonder if Christmas and the other solstice holidays, with their alleged emphasis on “peace on earth, good will towards men” do not concentrate all that good will into one small portion of the year, leaving us free to be our normal mean spirited selves the rest of the year. I don’t man to go all Grinch on everyone here but it does seem to me that we all too often assign good behavior to particular holidays, using that as an excuse to behave poorly the remainder of the time.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire is a wonderful image, full of the promise of loving our neighbors, but do our busy lives compartmentalize these positive opportunities into compact segments, much as we do with most of the other things we do with our lives, giving way to a sort of culturally acceptable schizophrenia; work now, then the drive home, then play with the kids, then sleep, then back to work, ad infinitum. Doesn’t it appear sometimes that we are radically different people depending on the circumstance; kind and loving here, cruel and heartless there. We shift back and forth into these becomings easily, never giving a thought to the fragmentation of our existence.

So we cram all of our feelings of gracious community and empathy into these short, swift, preordained periods of time and then return to our thoughtless striving for financial glory and social oneupsmanship the remainder of our fractured lives.  That conservative Uncle of yours gets the benefit of the doubt over turkey and all the trimmings, at least as long as it takes to unwrap the presents, and then its back to reviling him as a monster. We hold off our criticism about Cousin Mary’s unfortunate divorce until well past dessert, after the tryptophan wears off and we get off the couch looking for someone to dominate once again.

Perhaps this is a harsh assessment. Maybe the ghost of Scrooge has descended upon me in a fit of bah humbuggery. I just wish everyone would treat everyone else with the same loving kindness and forgiveness they muster up every Christmas day for the other 364 days of the year.

Things might be better all around.

It’s been awhile since my words have graced this corner of cyberspace. Electoral politics reared their ugly head and I was embroiled with this, that and the other thing, trying to get those I identified with elected. Oh, I had plenty of time to write, but when I arrived home after a day of campaigning I was exhausted, partly from the work but mostly from the stress of not knowing if the country would be led in a better direction. Besides, if I had anything to say it would probably be a diatribe against my candidates opponent and lord knows there was plenty of that to go around, offered by better minds than mine.

I have been devoting those brain cells I have left to a concise definition of the difference between the two isolated and polarized political camps that populate modern American politics. This conundrum has perplexed lots of pundits from both camps, although traditionally conservatives have done a better job of lying about liberals than vice versa, thus giving the appearance of clearly delineating a definition of “those who hate America”. These distortions aside, few experts have been able to divine a concise and accurate presentation of the differences between conservative and progressive character. Perhaps George Lakoff has come closest to the pin, describing conservatives as espousing “strict father” values with progressives choosing “nurturant parent” values instead.

The understanding of strict father and nurturant parent mentality unfortunately drifts about too much for my tastes. In general they provide a fairly accurate description of the two dominant modes of political thinking we see expressed today but who really knows exactly what they mean.

To accurately pin down a clear understanding of these differences in a sound bite easily digestible by the masses we must use few words (a struggle for this writer it is clear). They must be easily understandable by a majority of Americans and have elements both of commonality and separation, as that is the true nature of Americans, separated by ideology but bound by great commonality of purpose. Let me offer my contribution to this struggle to nail down a definition once and for all. I do not say it is the best solution, only mine. I do feel it has merit however slight it might be.

Lots of people I have talked to say that conservatives are about me and liberals are about we. This is concise to be true and descriptive but, I feel incomplete. I know plenty of conservatives that care about people and progressives who look out for number one. I hear others say conservative favor corporations and progressives are for workers. This again is basically true but narrows the scope of consideration to issues of commerce. Once again, in refutation, I think we all know conservatives who care about working people and progressives who are quite corporate in their approach to business.

I have always loved words and their etymology. Where words come from gives us a clue as to the reason for their creation. Words arise from a need to communicate something. Their roots give us a glimpse of their real meaning. The words I have chosen to describe the difference between conservatives and progressives are simple and related. Simply put conservatives compete and progressives cooperate. Both of these words are from the Latin and have as a prefix the Latin co or com, meaning together. Everybody, whether they care to or not, acts together. Even the hermit, far away in his mountain cabin, cannot get absolutely everything he needs from the land. He had to buy an ax somewhere and for some unknown reason most hermits drink coffee, necessitating some kind of relationship with Juan Valdez or his surrogates. Society is a series of individual acts that impact other individuals. We cannot escape it. We are social animals.

The roots of these two words are also related but subtly different. Compete has as its root the Latin verb petere, which means to aim at. Put the prefix and root together and we come up with an intentional meaning of aiming at something together. To compete means we all have the same thing in our sights but the implication is that only one of us will reach the goal, that all others will fail, unless you are Robin Hood and can split the sheriff’s arrow at the bullseye. Few of us can compete at that level. This type of problem solving implies that we all start with a quiver of arrows and a bow, essentially equal, but the skill of one individual will out. There is only one winner and everyone else loses.

Cooperate, on the other hand, has at its essence the Latin verb root operari which means to work. The word means to work together. As we can see there is great similarity in the two words. Both of them refer to people acting together to accomplish a given goal. The difference is in the focus of the two roots. When people cooperate i.e. work together, they accomplish a common goal and all benefit. They use their skill not to outwit or defeat an opponent but in accord with and augmenting the skill of others to produce a given result. Of course, there must be accord from the beginning of the task. In competition there are a variety of personal goals in play. Some compete simply for the thrill of winning, some to glorify themselves, some to prove a point. When people cooperate they have already thought out and agreed on the goal. This is work, something that many ego oriented competitors find boring and ultimately wasteful. Just set up the damn target and lets go at it.

So how do these related but finely differentiated words describe what I say they describe? Conservatives believe competition is the way to solve problems and act in the world. They posit that the most skillful will find the best solutions and that it is in all of the losers’ best interests to meekly accept that superiority. They believe in the competition of the free market system. They believe that each human interaction is a test of competence (notice where that word comes from). They believe that only the strong survive and that as Orwell so succinctly put it “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”. They believe in helping those who have less than they do but from a philosophy of “charity” which they tout as a virtue but from which they most often simply confirm their superiority. They give to those “beneath” them to feel good about themselves and their higher status. The people they give to do not deserve charity but the magnanimous conservative grants them the clemency of his gifts if they jump through whatever behavioral hoops he sets out before them, like a Roman gives the thumbs up to a particularly effective slave warrior in the Colosseum.

This is not to say that many conservatives give for altruistic reasons for there is such a thing as compassionate conservatism but unfortunately the former reasons are all too prevalent among those who worship the modern philosophy of Objectivism which rejects altruism out of hand as a weak and timid response unworthy of those who understand and have the strength and discipline to be powerful. Conservatives give of their treasure to show they have won, to confirm their competitive victory.

Conservatives believe that the purity of one man’s (or corporation’s) skill and power trumps the “compromised” and inherently weak mutual decisions of people working together in cooperation. They believe winning is everything. They want to drill in ANWR because not to drill is to admit weakness in the face of the power of foreign oil. They teach their kids to kick ass and take names. They teach them that making money is essential in proving their value. They believe in personal responsibility but twist the meaning of that noble pursuit into one where one is only responsible for oneself and not for others. The conservative world is one where all individuals are constantly bumping heads and chests with the winner becoming the Alpha and everyone else cowers. It is innately animal and hierarchical. It is regressive, involutional and wastes an incredible amount of energy.

Cooperation, while retaining the same aspect of acting together as competition, does so from an entirely different philosophic perspective. Progressives cooperate because, in the words of the late Paul Wellstone “We all do better when we all do better”. In fact there are plenty of bromides that describe a progressive philosophy of cooperation, ” A rising tide floats all boats”, “…the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped. “, “United we stand, divided we fall”, etc.

The point of cooperation is to maximize the collective skills available to best and most efficiently solve problems and accomplish tasks. Progressives believe that no one person has all the answers. They feel that we all have gifts, in different areas, and that together we can apply those gifts to the benefit of all. Progressives teach their kids to share. They tell them to be whatever they have a passion for. Progressives value what are apparently weaknesses in others for they know that accompanying those weaknesses are commensurate strengths. Progressives believe not only in individual responsibility but in mutual responsibility where people are responsible not only for their own actions but also look out for others. They temper their decisions with honest concern about the welfare of people they don’t even know, save that they are members of the human race and thus worthy of that concern.

The progressive world is one where people work together to make things better than any one of them ever could acting alone. It is evolutional and always looks forward, knowing the past is to be learned from but can never be relived. Progressives seek out win-win situations. They recognize that resources are scarce and precious and work to be efficient in their use of energy, especially human energy.

So in essence we find two systems, one which envisions being together as individuals all vying for the same prize and another where being together means we give up a small portion of our individuality for the good of the whole. To be frank both systems work. The true question is which system will bring us closer to potential extinction and which will bring us into a new dawn of human endeavor. For me the answer is clear but then again I am but one man. Perhaps we can work together to determine which course leads to a future and which does not.

I am ready to help.