Policy and Antipolicy

Policy is ultimately concerned with building systems and institutions to support human well-being.  For decades, a basic premise of American civic life was that the success of our society rested on a foundation of government providing for the public good.  This consensus was expressed succinctly in the words of the Republican Dwight Eisenhower:

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

In 2012, their number is no longer negligible, and they are no longer considered stupid.  To varying degrees this perspective dominates both political parties such that working people really have no alternative which supports a concept of public good in electoral politics, except for the occasional outlier like Bernie Sanders.

Neoliberalism is the political and economic philosophy driving our politics in 2012.  Many people have never heard of it, or if they have, do not understand that the engine of our political life is the same one which motivated the criminal regime of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile in the 70’s and 80’s.

The term itself is unfortunate.  I suspect many people have positive connotations when they consider the word liberal outside the political context: to be liberal minded, to be liberal with one’s friends (generous) etc.  The prefix neo is something we associate with pleasant styles which evoke nostalgia: neoclassical, neo-romantic, neo-gothic, etc.

Neoliberalism is neither pleasant nor liberal. 

According to Corpwatch, the main tenets of neo-liberalism include:

1. The rule of the market. Liberating "free" enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes.
2. Cutting public expenditure for social services like education and health care. Reducing the safety-net for the poor, and even maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply.
3. Deregulation. Reduce government regulation of everything that could diminish profits, including protecting the environment and safety on the job.
4. Privatization. Sell state-owned enterprises, goods and services to private investors. This includes banks, key industries, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water.
5. Eliminating the concept of "the public good" or "community" and replacing it with "individual responsibility."

Rather than building up the institutions of public good, neoliberalism seeks only to tear them down.  Yet actions based on neoliberal thinking are still commonly referred to as policy!  In education, NCLB and Race to the Top are not policies in any traditional sense because they have the effect of diminishing public education, and weakening the bonds between citizens and their institutions.

These are not policies; they are antipolicies.

Antipolicies are being advocated by both political parties.  On the one hand we have Republicans who advocate decapitating our institutions swiftly.  On the other, Democrats advocate doing it slowly, the death of a thousand cuts.  Oh yes we’ll preserve our civic institutions they go, we’ll just make everything a little better by instituting a few market reforms here and there, give people some “choice,” make government “accountable” through the miracle of the invisible hand, encourage personal responsibility through welfare “reform,” etc.

Being a little bit neoliberal is like being a little bit pregnant.

Public policy is rooted in a robust concept of public good.  We need to stop dignifying actions divorced from a concept of public good with the word “policy”.  These are antipolicies.

We also need to stop dignifying the purveyors of antipolicies with the term neoliberal.  They are criminals.

Could Ike Have Foreseen the Education-Industrial Complex?

In his farewell speech in 1961, Dwight Eisenhower famously warned of the dangers of the new military-industrial complex.  What he perhaps did not foresee was how that complex would become a paradigm for policy making outside the field of defense.  In the excerpt below I changed a few words, such as “military” to “education” and “federal contract” to “foundation grant”, and am struck by how Eisenhower’s prescient warning rings true for education in 2012.

"This conjunction of an immense education establishment and a large education industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the education-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge commercial and education machinery with our peaceful methods and goals, so that we may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-education posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.  In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary teacher, toiling in her classroom, has been overshadowed by task forces of researchers in foundations and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a foundation grant becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

The structure of the military-industrial complex has become a meme. It has recreated itself in the schools and universities of America.  A shadowy, revolving door world of government and quasi-government agencies, think tanks, foundations, corporations, universities, political and advocacy groups, and private contractors, form the ecosystem of education policy.  Oh yes – and unions, to be fair.  We need to call this out – it is the Education-Industrial Complex.

A self-reinforcing scientific-technological elite, detached from the everyday realities of the work, performs vast social engineering experiments behind closed doors in a cloud of group-think and acronyms.  Fueled by the endemic soft corruption of revolving six figure sinecures, as members pass easily from government to foundation to university, etc., this elite presumes to manipulate the masses of citizenry for their own good.

I have seen this with my own eyes.

It will take an “alert and knowledgeable citizenry” to deal with the consequences.  But where will that citizenry come from if their education is being engineered by people whose interests are money, status, and power, rather than democracy?