The great missing debate in contemporary politics is about the role and reach of markets. Do we want a market economy, or a market society? What role should markets play in public life and personal relations? How can we decide which goods should be bought and sold, and which should be governed by nonmarket values? Where should money’s writ not run?

Michael J. Sandel
“What Isn’t for Sale?”

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Can We Run Government Like a Business

The Economist has an interesting take in its Schumpeter blog from not-too-long-ago about the appropriateness of managing government like managing a business. The British newsweekly has never hidden its political views, and nobody would accuse it of being anything to the left of a Tory-leaning Liberal-Democrat. One might expect it to take a bullish attitude toward making government more businesslike.

But after examining some ideas, the paper comes to an interesting conclusion: interesting idea, but don’t take it too far:

There is much to quarrel with in the growing movement to learn from the private sector. Businesspeople tend to forget that government always involves the clash of visions and interests. The government of people can never be reduced to the administration of things. Businesspeople also forget that they are an interest group like any other. But it is nevertheless right to involve as many different voices as possible in the discussion. Governments have no choice but to rethink their core operations in the light of tectonic technological changes and escalating social pressures. They need all the help they can get.

Which is the point. We shouldn’t shy away from good ideas that come from business just because they were birthed in the commercial realm, but we should not give them credence in the government context merely because they succeeded in business.

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Terrorists to the Front of the Classroom

I have no problem with Ms. Boudin espousing her political views, no matter how misguided they may be. My issue is with placing a convicted murderer and terrorist in a classroom teaching our children. When we do that, we become no better than the extremists who teach in the Hamas terror camps.

To Whom Does Your Child Belong?

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Cover of "Brave New World"

Cover of Brave New World

One of the vices I try to foreswear in this forum is the singling-out of a single liberal voice. People on all sides of an issue have a right to their opinion, no matter how loony. But when something comes up that suggests a major divergence of values or perspective from the Bull Moose standpoint, it is worth highlighting if for no other reason than it offers an opportunity for us to stake out a claim.

Case in point: MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry stepped into a very deep pile of something unpleasant when she said in a promotional spot last week:

…we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.

This has provoked outrage among conservatives, and I think rightly so. William Bigelow, writing for Breitbart, fumed:

[Melissa Harris-Perry] may call those of us who know the value of parenting as opposed to being raised by the state trolls, but she shouldn’t be surprised by the furor over her remarks. To insult all of us who devote our lives to our children and also truly believe that we are completely responsible for their welfare is beyond offensive and repugnant; it is an attack on the foundations of western civilization itself.

I do not often agree with the Breitbart editorial line, but I have a hard time disagreeing on this one. It may take a village to raise a child, but that rearing is the responsibility of the parent(s.) To disagree is to do more than grant the state its right to act in loco parentis: it is to place on the community, and by extension the state, the responsibility for rearing children, and for the decisions about their health, welfare, education, clothing, feeding, and spiritual growth.

That statist approach to child-rearing is not only anathema to the principles that underlie this republic, they are the very precepts followed by totalitarian societies to ensure that the purpose of children is to support the state against all else. Indeed, leaving aside the implicit moral hazard of telling parents to have children without worrying about taking responsibility for them later, having the state assume that children become wards of the “community” places us on the road to fascism, to a brave new world none of us seek.

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“Whether a progressive position will improve or harm society is not a progressive question. That is a conservative question. What matters to progressives is whether a position emanates from compassion.”

- Dennis Prager

Remembering Hizzoner

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New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch during a me...

New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch during a meeting with US president Jimmy Carter in 1978 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Ed Koch, 1924-2013″
John Podhoretz
Commentary

Ed Koch was not particularly loved by conservatives, but he deserves much credit for his role in changing New York City’s fortunes. In a forthright tribute, John Podhoretz remembers Koch as a self-declared left-Democrat who saved New York through policies that were inclusive rather than divisively partisan.

As such, Koch offers us all a look at what is possible in America when we have the courage and intelligence to toss ideology into the back seat. Godspeed, Mr. Mayor.

Why the Pivot to Asia Makes No Sense

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Asia - Satellite image - PlanetObserver

Asia – Satellite image – PlanetObserver (Photo credit: PlanetObserver)

“America’s Pivot: One Big Contradiction”
Justin Logan
The Diplomat
January 25, 2013

I rarely discuss the topic of China in this space, for a couple of reasons. First, I discuss it at length in other fora, most often in Silicon Hutong and The Peking Review. Second, I think there are enough other more pressing topics to debate when it comes to the future of the U.S. Occasionally, though, I need to make an exception, and in this case Justin Logan’s thoughtful critique of our China policy demands I do so.

The Asia pivot fails three critical tests. First, it is a failure to match ends with means. The U.S. military lacks the doctrine, forces, and resources to fight and win even a limited conflict in the region, and appears to lack the will to create them within the current and looming constraints on budgets.

Second, it exposes latent hypocrisy, the failure of our rhetoric to match our reality, and thus it undermines our credibility. We say the shift has nothing to do wit China, when in everyone’s eyes, including those in the Pentagon and their opposite numbers in Beijing, it has everything to do with China. In Logan’s words, “if the success of America’s Asia policy relies on China’s elites believing our official rationale, the policy is in trouble.”

He’s absolutely right. And when we promulgate official rationales for policies that are blatantly at odds with reality, our global influence is shot in the foot.

Finally, the Asia Pivot demonstrates a lack of strategic imagination. Given the challenges America faces both at home and abroad, and given the priorities the government must now face as the nation ages and our infrastructure demands upgrades, global forward engagement of a rising hegemon is simply unsustainable. What is more, it encourages our allies to behave as free riders on a system we are creating.

The wisest choice for the US would be to forgo the neo-containment approach of the Pivot. Instead, we should revert to a posture that allows China enough rope in the region to prove itself a hegemon, thus inciting other countries in Asia to take greater responsibility for their own defense and for the balance of power in Asia.

The current administration is on the firing line for this approach, but this is not a partisan issue. It is, instead, a generational change in strategic focus, and if the current administration does not make the necessary choices, it will be left for successors to clean up the mess.

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