A controversial blurb in Rolling Stone shows what a post-Obama liberal agenda could look like.
Jesse A. Myerson of Rolling Stone probably didn’t intend to create a political firestorm when he wrote a short piece outlying five possible liberal agenda items for the future. But he did. It’s a pretty basic platform really. Myerson calls for guaranteed work for everyone that wants it, a universal basic income for all Americans, a land-value tax that taxes wealth instead of an income tax that taxes labor, a national sovereign wealth fund Alaska style, and publicly owned banks North Dakota style.
The fallout was what you might expect from such a plan: conservatives were enraged by Myerson’s basic five point plan, and if you don’t believe me just read the comments. But the platform struck me as a reasonable strategy for liberals in the post-Obama era.
This is especially helpful since it seems that being bitter about Obama is something of a cottage industry among liberals since 2008. Indeed Jonathan Chait pointed out in 2011 that liberals being bitter about the Obama presidency actually predates the Obama presidency.
These sorts of complaints have always struck me as being both silly and misguided. Silly because they all assume what political scientist Brendan Nyhan once called “the Green Lantern theory of the presidency.” That is the president is a sort of elected king who can do whatever he wishes by, like the Green Lantern, showing enough force of will. They also struck me as misguided because like it or not Obama is the President until January of 2017, if you’re a disappointed liberal you should be working to elect a more liberal president to replace him, something that few liberals seem to be doing these days.
Furthermore Myerson’s piece shows something that seems to be lacking with liberals in the Obama Age. Rather than complain about past defeats and the personal failings of the powerful, Myerson swings for the fences with big bold ideas about how he thinks we could make a better, more liberal society. Conservatives do this all the time, with plans to privatize Social Security, or turn Medicaid into a state program.
Selling yourself as a moderate sensible politician who can control those people out on the fringe of your political party ultimately only really works if there are people actually out there on the fringe. Rather than complain about the moderates, liberals would do themselves a favor by advocating new policies that make the moderates actually look moderate. Who knows, maybe they might make employment a right rather than a privilege.
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One additional question- how on earth could a sovereign wealth fund exist on the federal level when we deficit spend? States have to balance their budgets- hence they can set aside moneys into a sovereign wealth fund.
I’m kinda like Bob above. My favorite “ism” is “realism”
I got a scenario for ya: A fast food place employs 2 cashiers: 1. A 16 year old who lives with his middle class parents. He is working for pocket money so he can afford a new PS4 and cool rims for his truck. 2. A 45 yr old single mom of 2 whose family receives Government assistance. The market wage for the position is $8.75/hr which is what they both get paid. What is a fair wage? Is the same wage fair for both? Who decides what is fair? Is it moral to pay one more than the other… Read more »
Is that crickets I hear?
Every time I ask for specifics it just goes silent.
I especially love how we’d have a sovereign wealth fund at the Federal level yet the US is nothing like Alaska (incredible resource base and very small population) and our Federal govt. deficit spends. All they are proposing is writing a cheque to every citizen on a periodic basis. Its vote buying on a blatant and massive scale.
Those with a high marginal return on an additional dollar will LOVE the idea.
Well there are a million different ways you could put money into a sovereign wealth fund and a million different ways about how the money would get paid out. You could tax resource extraction (heavily subsidized right now under our current system) or financial speculation or carbon use or with a VAT etc.
Myerson doesn’t really get into specifics, that’s not the point of his article, his point is to broaden the conversation about what could be done.
Well stated Bob
Just an added tid bit …. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau show that most minimum-wage earners are young, part-time workers and that relatively few of them live below the poverty line. Their average family income is over $53,000 a year.
Ok Mr Galt, you go ahead and do that. Your entire post is libertarian strawman nonsense. Who said anything about full employment = forcing private employers to employ everyone? And I know this is symptomatic among people like yourself, but contrary to this myth you’ve built up in your head, you are A) not the only person who has worked hard, B) not everyone who has put in the time gets fair recompense for those efforts, and C) just because someone didn’t or wasn’t able to put their “head down in the books”, doesn’t mean they deserve to subsist on… Read more »
WOW. I don’t even know WHERE to begin. Employment as a right? Employment by WHOM? You? God forbid anyone want to start a company if they’d obligated by law to hire every dead-beat who chose not to actually work. You know what guys, this was tried once before and in the end, when THAT system collapsed, they fixed it with free market capitalism. I was just thinking today, you know, liberals love to beat this drum of income equality. Howbout we sell the message of Effort Quality? Howbout Good Personal Decision-Making Equality? Oh NO, that would bring undue attention to… Read more »
Thanks for the post from Rolling Stone. Too much attention is paid in the media to the right wing party that has done little good and not enough to this kind of progressive agenda would shape up to be. I would add something about breaking with the growth idolatry.
We’re killing ourselves with “growth” economies. And even though we’re supposed to go along with the capitalist wink, water, air and intact ecosystems are crucial for everyone but the reality show “Last Man Standing”