…And Today’s Ideological Debate

By Rob Schofield (republished from Monday, December 18th for your reading enjoyment)

Quick Take:

• Recently, Governor Easley was labeled a “Grinch” by a conservative advocacy group for urging caution in the adoption of a new round of state tax cuts.
• A look at the facts, however, shows that Easley’s motivations were almost certainly anything but Grinch-like.
• In fact, it is the far right’s obsession with wealth and self-interest that conjures up unflattering holiday analogies.

Sometimes, you have to hand it to the spin-savvy ideologues on the far right. For all of their shortcomings in the realms of statecraft and public policy development, no one can camouflage an unpopular, regressive idea behind an honorable sounding name (“Contract with America,” “No Child Left Behind,” “Ownership Society”) better than the market fundamentalists of modern America.

This skill at masking extremist policies also translates well into the field of personality attacks (remember the “swift-boating” of John Kerry?) and comes in handy when one needs to twist a symbol or a metaphor to a purpose other than that which its author intended.

This latter tactic was on full display last week in North Carolina when the group “Americans for Prosperity” attempted to portray Governor Mike Easley as the Grinch of Dr. Seuss’ Christmas tale because of his recent statement that he might urge the General Assembly to go easy on a new round of tax cuts in 2007. According to the Governor, North Carolina may want to at least consider holding off on a planned quarter cent cut in the state sales tax in light of expected tightening in revenues and continued growth in demand for core services. To hear AFP critics tell the story, however, Easley is a miserly old grump who wants to keep all of the state’s resources for himself, while vindictively denying the state’s hard working “Whos” the fruits of their labor.

Governor Grinch?

Governor Easley, of course, needs no outside defenders. He is a powerful and entrenched politician with a large staff of smart professionals. He has also earned and received a good deal of well-deserved criticism from progressives throughout his political career for his shortcomings in such areas as the corporate “incentives” game and criminal justice (particularly around the death penalty), where he seems unwilling to risk his popularity or to display much vision or leadership.

Nonetheless, despite these shortcomings, it should be pointed out that Easley is no miser, dedicated exclusively to the accumulation of wealth and power. Indeed, by most indications, Easley is a person motivated by a strong personal commitment to public service and a religious faith that leads him to serve others.

Last month, the Governor delivered a lecture at the University of Notre Dame entitled “The Intersection of Values and Politics in Modern American Life.”  In the speech, the Governor explained how his Catholic faith and belief in the importance “good works” were central to his political philosophy. He even noted with approval a twenty year-old pastoral letter from a group of U.S. bishops entitled “Economic Justice for All” in which church leaders discussed “how we need broader social commitment to the economic good.” He lauded the letter’s conclusion that “the moral role of government is to protect human rights and secure justice for all.” He noted further, “There is one theme upon which most major religions agree. In my faith, it is best explained as, ‘Whatever you do to the least of these, that you do unto me.’” In short, Governor Easley may not always practice what he preaches, but he’s certainly no Grinch. 

Getting Real with the Holiday Analogies

Aside from its obvious factual inaccuracy, what really makes the Easley-Grinch comparison so ridiculous, of course, is the fact that it was advanced by a group for whom the pursuit of wealth and property is a guiding and overarching faith. Indeed, if one examines the central tenets of the market fundamentalist ideology that is advanced which such fervency and persistence by groups like AFP, one cannot help but be struck by the similarities between their beliefs and those of two other memorable symbols of holiday stinginess: Ebenezer Scrooge of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and Mr. Potter from Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

One of the economic patron saints of the “libertarian” right during the last half of the Twentieth Century, of course, was the recently departed economist Milton Friedman. It was Friedman who helped legitimize and popularize the belief that the ultimate objective for all human beings was to maximize his or her own personal wealth. Friedman argued with Scrooge and Potter-like ferocity that in a truly successful society all “market participants” would pursue their own selfish objectives while public institutions got the heck out of the way.

Friedman’s market fundamentalist philosophy has, of course, been enormously influential in recent decades. Indeed, he deserves at least some credit for helping to stimulate economic efficiency and exposing the excesses of government bureaucracy. But like Scrooge and Potter, Friedman and his followers took the money-grubbing way too far.

As journalist William Greider noted recently in his assessment of Friedman’s career:

“His most profound damage, however, was as a moral philosopher. He championed an ethic of unrelenting, unapologetic self-interest that effectively pushed aside human sympathy. In fact, humans’ responsibility to one another has been delegitimized–portrayed as an obstacle to the hardheaded analysis that maximizes returns.”

And so it is with Friedman’s followers and heirs. Like him and like Scrooge, Potter and the Grinch, the market fundamentalists “champion an ethic of unrelenting self-interest” and “push aside human sympathy.” They belittle and attack those who would promote shared sacrifice and the construction of intentional, public solutions to the problems and inequities that confront human society as freedom-haters. And like their counterparts from holiday fiction, in so doing they perpetuate a hollow human existence that exalts wealth and selfishness and eschews the love and compassion for others that is the true essence of our brief lives on this planet.

A Happy Ending?    

The beauty of each of the three holiday stories mentioned above, of course, is that, in the end, love and compassion triumph over self-interest and greed. Ghostly visitors rekindle the spark of humanity in Scrooge and allow him to see the absurdity and immorality of one man possessing great wealth while others live in poverty. Mr. Potter never finds redemption, but George Bailey and the inhabitants of Bedford Falls find the true meaning of Christmas in sharing and caring and community. And as for the Grinch, he learns the timeless lesson that love and kinship (whether it be of the Who or human variety) will always triumph over the drive to grasp and accumulate material possessions.

As we contemplate the 2006 holiday season and the coming of a new year, there could be no better harbinger for the future than if these lessons were retold and relearned repeatedly by millions of North Carolinians on all points of the modern political spectrum.