FRIDAY UPDATE: Faith in Public LIVE: The common good in religion and politics
Discussing these questions are Nathan Newman, a widely published author and Policy Director for the Progressive States Network, a nonprofit that supports state legislative campaigns for economic and social justice; Sally Steenland, Senior Advisor to the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress, and co-editor of Pursuing The Global Common Good; James Salt, Director of Organizing at Catholics United, and former consultant to political campaigns involving Catholic strategy; and David Buckley, co-editor of Pursuing The Global Common Good and former Program Manager at Faith In Public Life.
David Buckley
I don't need another post on the topic (I don't think!), but wanted to respond with a few quick thoughts to Nathan's well-put point on shared sacrifice. You're exactly right that average Americans are already bearing too many of our national burden; just look at the socio-economic profile of those giving the last full measure in Iraq and those who are having jobs shipped overseas. I think the current disparity in who bears the sacrifices in this country is precisely the kind of opening that could be used to articulate why we need a real common good and how it would differ from the policies that we've seen for the past 7 years.
I could be wrong, but I also think that the common good tradition presents substantial resources for getting at your point about there being essential human needs that only government can meet. The radicalness of the common good is precisely that it calls every aspect of human society (not just personal morality) to work for a shared just goal. I'd also argue that even if we need to debate with conservatives about the government-private sector balance for solving these problems, it's better than talking within their family values frame until the cows come home.
Nathan Newman
Putting the idea of sacrifice at the center of the definition of the common good seems problematic to me. The first question is why average folks should be asked to sacrifice anything, when a tiny minority is doing so well for themselves at the expense of the many. If the common good has no room for reasonable questions of what we can call "class war" questions, I become skeptical that the common good will become an excuse to shield the economic elite from hard questions.
But the second problem with talk of sacrifice is the public versus private distinction I highlighted in my first post. Most average voters already ARE sacrificing, for their kids, for sick relatives, for their communities. Many look to government for relief from those sacrifices and are not necessarily going to be thrilled to be told by common good politicians that they need to sacrifice some more.
James, the John Kennedy quote came from a specific time-- after a decade or so when family wages had doubled and the issue of taking a little bit of that additional rise of standard of living to help others was an easier thing to contemplate. We are at a very different point where wages have largely stagnated for decades, health costs are driving many families into bankruptcy, and speculators and rising home prices have left many families seeing their homes at foreclosure auctions. This at the same time that they watch incredible wealth sloshing around the globe.
So a common good based on public sacrifice by ordinary voters seems a bad place to be.
But there is an alternative discussion of common good, one that first does acknowledge that the common good means that a few individuals should not be able to exploit the commons for extreme private profit. The first step is to return those unfair elite skimmings from the commons -- whether financial, environmental or social -- back to the public as a whole. Once that is done, we can have the real discussion of the common good, which is less about "sacrifice" -- which people feel more comfortable in their private lives -- than about understanding that there are many things we all benefit from that are done together than done separately.
Public infrastructure is the most obvious-- mass transit to save the environment can't be bought on the margins; it needs a public commitment to shift a whole set of development patterns to make the network work for everyone. But the end result is a better life and a better planet. Seeing that we need to invest in our communities so all benefit from the wealth thereby produced is a broad sense of the common good that we need more progressives to endorse, and not run away from the idea that the government does many things that the market just flat out fails at.
Ideologically, that's the real conflict here. Many believe all that is needed can be produced by market exchange, my individual act traded for your individual act. And if "sacrifice" is mentioned, they see individual charitable acts as all that is necessary.
But the progressive view of the common good is that individual markets and individual charity are not enough. We need to understand that society is more than the sum of its parts, that we create collectively what never gets produced through the accumulation of individual acts. That is the deep debate and if the word "common good" just obscures that debate over the debate between market versus public planning by government, than it will do a disservice to the real debate needed.
Nathan
*UPDATED* Faith in Public LIVE: Progressives and Evangelicals Together Speak Out
There's been a lot of buzz in the media this year about the broadening of the evangelical agenda, and attempts by some (non-evangelical)* progressives to reach out to evangelicals and vice versa. Evangelicals who have sought to broaden the agenda to include issues like poverty, global AIDS, human rights and torture, immigration and global warming have been fiercely attacked by some conservatives who claim they are distracting attention away from issues like abortion and gay marriage. On the other hand, some progressives have dismissed the efforts of religious progressives to reach out to evangelicals around these issues, accusing them of seeking meaningless common ground and ignoring core progressive issues, or of attempting to build a conservative religious coalition within the Democratic party.
This week, we are asking evangelicals who are reaching out to progressives and progressives who are reaching out to evangelicals to speak for themselves.
Robby Jones a religion scholar and consultant to national progressive organizations; Randy Brinson and Pastor Bill Devlin of Redeem the Vote; Shaun Casey of Wesley Theological Seminary and Center for American Progress; Rev. Susan Thistlethwaite of Chicago Theological Seminary; and Rev. Rich Killmer of National Religious Campaign Against Torture weigh in...
Faith in Public LIVE Paul Waldman, Jeff Sharlet and Dan Schultz, Part 10
Part 10: Dan: Christian's theological and political differences demand thorough analysis
Part 9: Jeff on self-definition
Part 8: Paul on getting results with reporters by playing hardball
Part 7: Dan: "sometimes you have to be willing to throw a sharp elbow or two to get your message heard."
Part 6: Jeff: "Paul, where can I find these progressives who 'reveal too much'? Sounds like a good story."
Part 5: Paul: "there is a higher degree of professionalism on the right when it comes to dealing with the media."
Part 4: Jeff to progressives: "Common grounder activists are annoying. Common grounder journalists are deadly."
Part 3: Dan sees lack of context, independence and accuracy in Time stories on faith in politics.
Part 2: Jeff calls for diligent skepticism of both progressives and conservatives.
Part 1: Paul provides examples and analysis of media bias against religious progressives.
Faith in Public LIVE Chuck Gutenson, Barbara Lerman-Golomb and Sally Bingham, Part 9
Faith in Public LIVE Eric Sapp, Rabbi Andy Bachman and Jamison Foser, Part 7
Part 6: Jamison Foser: Stop reinforcing the media's flawed assumptions
Part 5: Rabbi Andy Bachman: Stop Talking, Start Walking
Faith in Public LIVE Harry Knox, Aaron Krager, and Mike Lee: Part 8
Part 8: Aaron Krager and Mike Lee on Uniting All of the Fights for Justice
Faith in Public LIVE Dr. Nazir Khaja and Islamoyankee: Islamophobia Rising, Part 6
Click below for the latest post...
Part 6: Islamoyankee on the Reformation vs. Renaissance