Sneaky Pete
When I first heard Elizabeth Warren speak on the topic of bank regulation, I considered her a reactionary socialist. Over the years, I have listened carefully to her ideas and think she has many fine and well-reasoned ideas that would greatly benefit the nation. Universal healthcare and even universal income are enlightened and forward-looking ideas that could make a positive and meaningful improvement in the life of Americans. That, of course, would hinge on the way in which these programs were administered and the degree to which corruption could be minimized. That is the fundamental problem with most great socioeconomic ideas. The devil truly is in the detail, but mostly the devil is in peoples’ very souls. If we could count on people not defaulting to extreme self-interest and other lesser qualities, we could have a perfect world.
But as people often say, it’s not a perfect world and people themselves are far from well-intentioned at all times…or perhaps even most of the time. However, if we live based on assuming the worst or allowing the least common denominator to guide our actions, we are all pretty much screwed. Seeking perfection in people is different from accepting corruption and a profound lack of ethics as an acceptable standard. I can accept less than perfect, but I have a hard time accepting outright moral degradation. I heard an Iowa voter just say that he considers President Trump a despicable human being, but he feels that he is doing good things for the country. That simply doesn’t compute. It is a slippery slope when it comes to matters of collective governance. Moral deficiency in governance mostly takes the form of advancing self-interest versus the greater good.
I listened to a Yuval Noah Harari book recently and he explains there have always been three major challenges for mankind; famine, plague and war. As recently as 1700, a man’s life expectancy was very much governed by avoiding these three things. The instances of these three events gets hidden by the reality that history is written by survivors, not those who succumb. We don’t even realize the extent to which western civilization overcame by having more germs that spread from its explorations than those at the other end of the stick. Native Mexicans, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians were all knocked to the ground by European diseases like small pox, syphilis, influenza, etc. Famine afflicted every part of the world at one time or another, killing 10-30% of the population over and over again. And wars, which are the best recorded of the three, were an ever-present risk that could decimate the population.
We have been spoiled in the last seventy years in having all three highly minimized or, at worst, localized. Nonetheless, at the margin, these remain the three primary risks faced by mankind, only to a lesser degree today. It’s easier to contemplate if you rename these as economic sufficiency, healthcare and absence of violence. Thought of that way, this is what everyone in America or the world wants for their lives. Put into that context, Elizabeth Warren’s ideas sound more reasonable.
Universal income is a means to avoid famine or promote a minimum level of economic sufficiency. Universal healthcare may not eliminate plague, but it clearly intends to apply our best medical technology against whatever plagues whatever human on earth. And as for war and peace, that is about globalism and a view that we are all one people and we may squabble, but we do not violently square-off against one another in mortal combat. This is about open borders or some reasonable version of the ability for people and goods to flow freely where they are most needed.
OK then, that sounds a lot like socialism, but it needn’t be the extreme versions that turn everything and everyone a light shade of gray. I prefer to think in the European model of social democracy. Even Elizabeth Warren talks about being an enlightened capitalist. That is the notion that in the long run, if we all push to make the pie bigger and more evenly split, we will have a bigger pie overall and our individual slices over time will average out bigger than otherwise. This is what I believe and I prefer to call it enlightened greed or long-term greedy. That’s hard for a billionaire to believe, but the good news is that there are still very few of those around.
Now the problem is convincing others that this makes sense. The good news is that Bernie and Elizabeth have been out there proselytizIng their philosophy for five plus years and there are a growing base of voters who buy in. Now what we need is to help these “Moses” figures to take this to the promised land. That is the way of the world. The great prophets get the reverence and the young prophets get the glory of completion.
I thought this young prophet would be named Beto, but now it seems out of nowhere, a guy named Pete has snuck up on the pack. He is smart, idealistic and extremely charismatic in a self-effacing way. Beto may have been born to the cause, but Pete was made for the cause. He was forged in the rust belt, educated amongst the elite, hardened in Afghanistan, and honed in the real world of modern diversity. When I hear him speak, I hear greatness. We need greatness.
To carry my Moses analogy, we have been wandering in the Trumpian wilderness and have fallen to dancing around graven images in MAGA hats. That seems an apt analogy because everything about that base seems to be about self-aggrandizement. Unlike some that might wish for a great flood that washes all that away, I prefer getting to a self-realization that the MAGA party is over and someone like Pete Buttigieg can faithfully, conservatively and yet progressively move us to higher ground. He should and can appeal to all if the Moses figures can cast the golden calf to the ground and reveal it for the false prophet it is.
Don’t be surprised if Sneaky Pete steals the show in 2020.