. . . Sunstein considers his post-partisan conception an attempted synthesis of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal liberalism and Ronald Reagan’s new conservatism (a particularly daunting task in light of Reagan’s statement of philosophy in his first inaugural address, which “outlined the coming of a new order that would break completely with the New Deal and the ‘modern Republicanism’ that accepted the New Deal’s premises”).10 Consistent with the New Deal, Sunstein strongly defends the need for government intervention in market ordering and proclaims “senseless” general opposition to government intervention per se.11 Consistent with the Reagan vision, Sunstein also defends the importance of
freedom of choice, with the strong preference such choice entails for market ordering. Sunstein’s synthesis is to defend justifiable government intervention, but to require that intervention to be structured in ways that promote freedom of choice.12
The second way of seeing Sunstein’s conception is almost diametrically the opposite of the way Sunstein envisions it. Perhaps this conception actually reveals how chastened and minimalist political aspirations are limited to being in our era. Rather than a bold, new Third Way for a transformed politics, Sunstein’s search for consensus might show that political ambition and aspiration at this moment can only be confined to the lowest common denominator of broad political acceptance. Perhaps this is a matter of political realism: anything more than a modest politics of incrementalism is simply not likely to be enacted. Or perhaps this constrained vision reflects a dispirited post-New Deal liberalism that, after seeing the failures of many liberal programs, finds it difficult to imagine bold new political programs. But when we move from rhetoric to detail, as I will show in a moment, it becomes clear that Sunstein’s approach entails tinkering with the details of various programs, rather than the bold new departures of either the New Deal or the Reagan vision. To be sure, I do not mean to belittle this tinkering; the health, welfare, and safety of many Americans might well be improved by the changes Sunstein urges. But it is nonetheless important to put this political program in perspective, and to use it to raise questions about the political era in which we live and the kind of politics to which we can and should aspire.
Pildes labels his piece a "tribute" to Sunstein. He seems to be playing the anti-Mark Antony here, professing to come to praise Sunstein, but ending up burying him. Consider this passage:
Sunstein’s vision of modern government, it becomes clear that this is a vision focused on changing the means by which government
acts. This focus, however, then raises the question: how much can or should politics focus primarily on the means of government action, rather than what ends government ought to pursue? Or, to the put the question in terms of Sunstein’s own stated ambitions, can it really be the case that the major political critique of the New Deal that was effectively launched in the Reagan years was simply a critique about the means of public policy, as opposed to the proper role of the state and the ends for which government ought to act? Should we see Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, as so divisively polarized today merely because they disagree about what means government ought to use in pursuing policy objectives – objectives that, we are presumably to believe, all sides actually share? Or is it more realistic to acknowledge that these divisions are far more about values, priorities among values, and competing views about how best to interpret and understand those values in various settings of political decisionmaking?
These seem a series of rhetorical questions. Of course politicians must speak of common purpose and working together. But in the end, Republicans and Democrats do not agree on issues of substance. They simply do not. FDR said:
True leadership calls for the setting forth of the objectives and the rallying of public opinion in support of these objectives.
And THEN he said:
The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.
The objectives come first. The methods are to be determined. In this vein, Pildes writes:
In the wake of the Depression, Congress created many of the institutions and regulatory regimes that have since given stability and credibility to U.S. financial markets. Some of this regulatory structure focused on better disclosure of information, but much of it involved the kind of command-and-control regulation and mandatory requirements that Sunstein’s Third Way aims to avoid. Virtually all high-level policy proposals being considered in the wake of the current crisis recognize that government is going to have to extend this structure to reach financial institutions not covered by the New Deal laws and is going to have to mandate – yes, mandate – restrictions on various kinds of risk-taking practices of financial institutions.
What Pildes does not mention is that FDR's pronounced objectives were indeed anathema to Republicans and conservatives. It was not just the methods that were challenged. It was the objectives themselves. When FDR said:
No, our basic trouble was not an insufficiency of capital. It was an insufficient distribution of buying power coupled with an over-sufficient speculation in production. While wages rose in many of our industries, they did not as a whole rise proportionately to the reward to capital, and at the same time the purchasing power of other great groups of our population was permitted to shrink. We accumulated such a superabundance of capital that our great bankers were vying with each other, some of them employing questionable methods, in their efforts to lend this capital at home and abroad.
I believe that we are at the threshold of a fundamental change in our popular economic thought, that in the future we are going to think less about the producer and more about the consumer. Do what we may have to do to inject life into our ailing economic order, we cannot make it endure for long unless we can bring about a wiser, more equitable distribution of the national income.
he was stating objectives diametrically opposed to those of his political opponents. The methods he employed to achieve those objectives were varied, both in manner and efficacy. But they sprung from the objectives. FDR set his objectives and then engaged in "bold, persistent experimentation" to achieve those objectives. FDR brought forth perhaps the ultimate example of political leadership in our country. He practiced what he preached:
True leadership calls for the setting forth of the objectives and the rallying of public opinion in support of these objectives.
So far, in my view, President-Elect Obama has embraced the FDR model of political leadership. The Sunstein view of political leadership appears to have become anachronistic in just a matter of months. A short shelf life indeed.
Speaking for me only
