Current Events

Right vs. Cool

April 3rd, 2012 // 9:12 pm @ Oliver DeMille

The Upcoming Elections

Weeks ago I wrote an article about two kinds of voters in modern America, the traditionalists (who vote mostly based on issues) and the literalists (who vote pragmatically).

The response has been both widespread and interesting.

The feedback made it clear that a lot of independent voters understood and appreciated my point, but few traditionally partisan voters fully understood what I was trying to say.

So, I’m going to try this again. Here goes…

Many voters base their vote on the issues. They like the views of one major party and dislike the views of the other.

Or, if they don’t identify with either party, they still listen to the ideas and platforms of each candidate and vote for who they think will do the best job in office—and they determine who “will do the best job” based on the candidate’s stance on important issues.

There is another kind of voter. This second kind of voter had little influence before the Age of the Internet, because the two big parties ran state and national politics.

This has changed in the last few years, mainly because the Internet and various social media have given a real voice to people outside the two big parties and a few editors at major newspapers and television networks.

Today, this second kind of voter has a huge voice.

For the most part, the first kind of voter is still depending on party caucuses, party meetings and party delegates, while the second kind of voter is engaging on-going online debates about political topics that go on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and doesn’t care if there is a party meeting next month or if it already happened last month.

The first kind of voter elects the candidate he thinks is most right on the issues. The second kind of voter prefers the candidate he considers the most “cool.”

The word “cool” may seem incongruent with political commentary, but it isn’t.

At a recent political rally, I sat quietly on a couch and listened to the people walking past. It was a big crowd, and I wrote a lot of notes as I recorded what various voters said.

“Obama is so cool!” “Ron Paul is so cool!” “Ron Paul is awesome!” “Obama is the worst president ever.” “Ron Paul’s foreign policy is just plain crazy!” “Obama can really sing!” “Yeah, and dance!”

In contrast, I also wrote: “Mitt Romney is our only chance to fix the economy, avoid further downgrading of our credit rating, and re-energize private sector growth.”

These are only a few of the notes I took, but they are indicative of the overall mood.

I wrote something very close to the following at least a dozen times: “Governor Romney is the only candidate with both executive experience and an understanding of private sector business growth.”

But not one person who spoke of a candidate within my earshot said anything remotely like, “Romney is so cool.”

This certainly wasn’t a scientific study or poll.

My notes were entirely anecdotal.

But one theme emerged that I found interesting: the divide between gut-level, emotional comments and those that were clearly cerebral. I went away thinking that if Romney becomes the Republican nominee, he will have to immediately find a way to connect with regular Americans on an emotional, gut level, or he won’t have a chance in the general election.

Again, there are two kinds of voters.

One looks for the “right” candidate who will do the “right” thing on the important issues, the other looks for the candidate who is “awesome,” or “cool.”

Note that this isn’t just a generational difference, nor is the idea that a candidate is “cool” only a shallow, high-schoolish popularity thing.

It actually speaks to something much deeper, something that is perhaps intangible but which Washington insiders wisely refer to as “the leadership thing.”

Pundits on both sides of the aisle frequently discount “the cool thing” as simple and unsophisticated, but only because they tend to be issues voters.

They see elections as choosing the candidate who is the most right on the most issues, as discussed above, and they dismiss “the cool thing” because they tend to believe that all voters are issues voters.

But the second kind of voter is increasingly influential in American politics.

Indeed, in every presidential election in recent times the candidate with “the leadership thing” has won.

Most liberals vote with the Democratic candidate, and most conservatives vote for the Republican candidate.

But there are now more independents than Republicans or Democrats, and a lot of independents are “leadership” voters.

They just want great leadership, not another candidate trying to convince every group that he is
“with them” on the issues.

The more sophisticated of these leadership voters have additional criteria, but the masses go with “the cool thing.”

This is part of the American character, and the majority of these voters cast their votes for the candidate they think most likely to be the best leader.

Note that they define “leadership” as “leadership skills regardless of political leanings,” not as “closest to me on the issues.”

And these voters have quite a record. They supported:

Reagan over Carter
Reagan over Mondale
Bush over Dukakis
Clinton over Bush
Clinton over Dole
Bush over Gore
Bush over Kerry
Obama over McCain

In every case, most liberals voted Democratic and most conservatives voted Republican, but the nation went with leadership over issues.

And in most cases, it wasn’t that one candidate won “the leadership thing” as much as that one candidate lost on leadership.

In short, in every modern election we choose the “cool” candidate, and we define “cool” in ways having little or nothing to do with political views, left or right, liberal or conservative.

You can like this or dislike it, but issues voters need to get one thing very clear: All of these elections were determined by the second type of voter.

Those who want to understand our elections need to realize that while some voters vote on the issues, the deciding swing voters in close elections always go for what politicos call “the leadership thing” and what the masses would more easily understand as “the cool thing.”

And, again, this isn’t immature or shallow.

It’s about a profound, gut-level trust in the potential of great leadership, combined with a deep mistrust of political parties and politicians of every stripe.

Indeed, if you don’t trust what any politicians say, their rhetoric on the issues falls on deaf ears and you have to find some other way to decide who to vote for.

And, frankly, their potential for leadership is an excellent criterion.

I personally tend to be an issues voter, and I think the future of the economy makes the next election a vital concern for all Americans.

But I’m in the minority on this, as are all issues voters.

This election, like most others for the past thirty years, is going to be determined on the basis of how the top candidates project their non-political leadership ability.

I’ve said elsewhere that the most important races of 2012 are the U.S. House and Senatorial elections, and I still hold this view.

The presidential election and a lot of local elections are also important, and all of us can do more to make our influence felt.

On a practical note: If your candidate isn’t very “cool,” if he or she is depending only on the issues to win the election, do your best to help promote their case on the basis of leadership!

The outcome and impact of the upcoming elections depend on it.

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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

He is the co-author of New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Citizenship &Current Events &Featured &Government &Independents &Leadership &Liberty &Statesmanship

The New Challenge of Governments

February 28th, 2012 // 10:03 pm @ Oliver DeMille

Globalization is changing the demand on governments around the world. Since the advent of the nation-state in 1648, the purpose of national government has been to protect its citizens from attack by international forces and domestic criminals.

Local government has focused on providing the various needs of citizens as deemed appropriate by voters and constitutional by the courts, and together these two levels of government (national and state in the U.S.) have been responsible for certain limited roles; the rest was left to private institutions and citizens.

With the growth of internationalism in the twentieth century, many governments took on the additional responsibility of helping its citizens prosper through the use of diplomacy, military strength and multilateral decision-making abroad.

Such responsibilities included, for example, the safety of citizens traveling the world, the protection of international investments by domestically-owned corporations, and the maintenance of trade and low prices in important commodities (from sugar to petroleum).

Where internationalism added a few such roles to many national governments, globalism is rewriting the entire purpose of government.

And where internationalism assumes a world made up of various separate nations with individual sovereignty and diplomatic arrangements between equals, globalism is based on a different perspective.

In the globalist view, we live in one world, everything that happens everywhere affects us all, and government should care for citizen needs by taking action around the world as needed to protect and promote the best results for its constituents.

Basically nothing is off limits.

This adds numerous implied responsibilities to governments that embrace the globalistic worldview.

For people who believe government should be limited to the authorities explicitly delegated by the people in the Constitution (as I do), this is a disturbing development.

It is becoming a concern for everyone as time passes.

On a technical level, the U.S. Constitution allows the federal government to engage in and ratify treaties with other nations, and when this occurs these treaties become part of the de facto constitutional structure of our nation.

In the era of internationalism (beginning around 1913 and expanding ever since, especially after 1944), the treaty powers have been used to drastically change our Constitutional model.

This is part of the “fine print” of our Constitutional society, and it has been ignored by almost all ordinary citizens.

But the shift from internationalism to globalism is a significantly bigger change (in size and also scope) than the shift from nationalism to internationalism.

Under the new values and ideals of globalism, the role of government is, well, everything it deems desirable.

Literally.

This viewpoint is fundamentally the end of limited government.

Government in the global era is expected to survey the world, see needs, debate and vote about them, and pass legislation or issue executive orders to deal with whatever the government deems advantageous—the Constitution notwithstanding.

This includes taking action at the most local and personal level, including in peoples’ homes and family decisions, and also at the macro-level in any and every corner of the world.

This is big government gone über.

In this view, government should do whatever is needed to accomplish whatever it considers popular or important.

The courts are allowed to sort out whether or not such action was acceptable, but only after the fact. No checks stop such government action and no balances are required before the government can act.

This is more than big government; it is closer to the philosophy of governance that Hobbes called Leviathan.

No wonder the government hasn’t yet figured out quite how to respond to this changing sense of the state’s proper role.

Congressman Paul Ryan argues that the federal government doesn’t have a tax problem but rather a spending problem, but according to this new viewpoint of globalism the U.S. is going to have to spend a lot more—a lot more!—in the years and decades ahead to fulfill its proper role.

From this perspective, our federal spending spree is just getting started, and the only way to meet the need is to fundamentally reform taxation and get the upper and upper middle classes to foot the bill for a globalist government run from Washington.

In this outlook, we’ll need to keep raising the budget every year and the required spending is deeply underfunded.

Only massive increases in taxes can get us moving in the right direction.

The old debate between Conservatives and Liberals just doesn’t rise to the level of this new challenge, and the current energy in Washington is focused on a globalistic agenda that anticipates drastic increases in government for decades to come.

Georgetown University’s Charles A. Kupchan, wrote:

“A crisis of governability has engulfed the world’s most advanced democracies. It is no accident that the United States, Europe and Japan are simultaneously experiencing political breakdown; globalization is producing a widening gap between what electorates are asking of their governments and what those governments are able to deliver.” (Foreign Affairs, January/February 2012)

Globalism is leading to a natural decrease in the living standard of developed nations, and citizens of such nations are turning to government to help bring back the lifestyles they’ve grown accustomed to enjoying.

As the lower and middle classes of the world join the global economy, and as competition for investment and credit is spread around the globe, the special benefits that the middle classes in advanced nations have carved out for themselves are becoming unsustainable.

The middle class was created by generations who worked very hard to earn such benefits, but their posterity seems to prefer keeping these same perks without putting forth the same effort.

When this doesn’t work, they want their government to simultaneously block immigrants from “taking our jobs” and also find ways to maintain their parents’ lifestyle without having to earn them the same way earlier generations did.

Except for the entrepreneurial class—and government is increasing the barriers to entrepreneurship.

This is painful.

And it forces a choice at the voting booth: either more freedom coupled with harder work on the one side or higher taxes on the rich combined with more government benefits on the other.

The “government fix” approach is predictably more popular.

The real answer is to re-establish a truly free system, where the government limits itself to the authority outlined in the Constitution and the laws are altered to re-emphasize true free enterprise where the laws treat everyone (lower, middle and upper classes) equally.

Freedom works, and a refocus on freedom will once again make America’s economy the envy of the world.

Capital, investment and entrepreneurialism aren’t fleeing the United States because of globalism but because Washington’s policies have made the U.S. economy less profitable and attractive to business.

Unless the United States returns to a genuine free-enterprise model, our long-term economic trajectory will decline.

The battle has changed, though most people haven’t realized it yet.

Now it’s less about Left vs. Right and more the burgeoning issues of Free Enterprise vs. Globalism.

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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Current Events &Government &Leadership &Liberty &Politics &Statesmanship

The New Grand Strategy for 2012

February 20th, 2012 // 2:50 pm @ Oliver DeMille

1. Two Speeches

Several years ago I spoke at a seminar on international affairs and I predicted that in the next few years the United States would adopt a new Grand Strategy. I outlined America’s historical Grand Strategies, from Constitutionalism (1789-1820) and Manifest Destiny (1820-1900) to Nationalism (1900-1945) and later Internationalism (1945-2001).

I pointed out that our Grand Strategy is the way we define our major national goals for the decades ahead, and that after 9/11 we were on track for a new Grand Strategy. We discussed some possible Grand Strategies that could come, and we brainstormed things we hoped to see in the Grand Strategy of the 21^st Century.

The same year, in another speech on a different occasion, I showed how many of the predictions found in one publication, Foreign Affairs, keep ending up as official U.S. policy. I cited numerous examples from articles in Foreign Affairs and showed how within five years of publication their recommendations were adopted. I marveled that one publication could have such an effective track record, and recommended that everyone in attendance subscribe to and read this magazine.

Of course, as I said in the speech, not all the authors in Foreign Affairs agree on every detail, and in fact they engage in a great deal of debate. But, again, is it amazing how often policies recommended in Foreign Affairs end up being implemented in Washington.

Then, just this year, the messages of these speeches came together in an interesting way. In the January/February 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs, a new article outlines a new Grand Strategy for the United States. Although I don’t agree with many of the details in this latest Grand Strategy, the track record of Foreign Affairs promises that this will, in fact, be the Grand Strategy of the United States in the decades ahead.

I believe that this will be the major 21^st Century challenge for the future of American freedom.

2. Grand Strategy Drives the Nation

The power of a Grand Strategy can hardly be overstated. When a nation adopts a Grand Strategy, it dominates national policy and influences all national choices over time. Few, if any, policies go against or are even allowed to compete with the accepted Grand Strategy.

And while not everyone knows what a Grand Strategy is, the intelligentsia of both parties tend to follow the Grand Strategy with the energy and passion of religious doctrine. They may disagree on many things, but they both adhere to the Grand Strategy.

So what is the new Grand Strategy of the United States? The answers are outlined in an article by Zbigniew Brzezinski: “A New U.S. Grand Strategy: Balancing the East, Upgrading the West”. Students of American policy will remember Brzezinski as the U.S. National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981 and as a long-time writer on U.S. international strategy.

3. Our New Grand Strategy

Things have changed drastically over the past decade, Brzezinski assures us, and by 2012 a new Grand Strategy is overdue. The outlines of this new plan include the following:

The “central focus” for the United States in the years ahead is threefold: (1) revitalize the U.S., (2) help the West expand, and (3) create a balance in the East that will allow China to successfully rise without becoming an enemy.

The expansion of the West will create a democratic free zone from North America and Western Europe to a number of other nations, including Eastern Europe, Russian, Turkey, Japan and South Korea.

In the East, U.S. power and influence will attempt to create a cooperative relationship between China and Japan and keep Chinese-Indian relations from turning to violent conflict.

To accomplish all this, the U.S. must become a better “promoter and guarantor” of unity and simultaneously a “balancer and conciliator between the major powers of the East.”

To have any credibility in these roles, the U.S. must effectively “renovate itself at home.” This requires, says Brzezinski, four things: (1) better innovation, (2) improved education, (3) a balance of American power and diplomacy, and (4) a better focus on quality political leadership in Washington.

One of the most important changes ahead must be an effective improvement of relations between the United States and the European Union. The two sides of the Atlantic have been drifting apart since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but this trend must be reversed. Otherwise, growing conflicts between the United States, the European Union, and Russia could weaken the West and cause it to splinter and become increasingly pessimistic. This would also promote a more contentious China.

The U.S. should decrease military power in Asia and emphasize increased cooperation with China.

Taiwan will at some point have to reconcile in some way with China.

Unfortunately, there are a number of problems with this new strategy. If this is the outline of the years ahead, the U.S. will definitely face an era of deepening international confusion and tension.

Despite this reality, the historical track record of Foreign Affairs suggests that this is the Grand Strategy we will follow. If this occurs, voters will elect one party and then the other, and remain frustrated when the on-going Grand Strategy of our international affairs keeps our economic and other national policies going in the same direction.

Adoption of this Grand Strategy is a path of inevitable decline, regardless of what the experts say. Election after election, we’ll seek real change but see whoever is in the White House continually push our nation in the same negative direction.

4. Significant Flaws

Specifically, this new Grand Strategy has at least the following major defects:

An abandonment of support for an independent Taiwan, even through a subtle shift of attitude as suggested, amounts to a significant reversal of America’s historical loyalty to our allies. Such a change will undermine our credibility with other nations and further erode Washington’s credibility with American voters.
The attempt to bridge differences between the United States and European nations in this Grand Strategy takes the tone of the U.S. becoming more like these nations—rather than influencing these countries to adopt more freedom-based values historically espoused by the U.S.
Adoption of this new Grand Strategy may amount to a de facto appeasement of China. If China is, in fact, following a savvy strategy of replacing America as the world’s dominant super power and transporting its fundamental values around the globe, then this would be nothing less than a disastrous policy. And even if China is a good-faith seeker of more global participation, cooperation and open trade, it certainly wants to spread its central values and ideals—nearly all of which are antithetical to freedom.
The emphasis on increased business innovation and improved education in this strategy seem to rely on increased government spending and intervention in our economy rather than policies that incentive increased free enterprise, innovation, hiring and entrepreneurialism. This is yet another attempt to move away from traditional American values and adopt instead the government-run mercantilist practices of European and Asian economies.
The focus in this policy is a shift from internationalism (a policy of interactions between sovereign nations with America as a world leader) to globalism (where the United States submits its actions to the decisions of international organizations).
Note that while we have changed the Constitution through Amendments less than thirty times in over two hundred years, it has been changed in literally thousands of ways through treaty (and these changes are seldom noticed by most Americans). While treaties were used to skirt the Constitution many times under the Internationalist Grand Strategy since 1945, this new Globalist Grand Strategy will make this the major focus of its policies, totally ending Constitutional rule in the United States. This is not an exaggeration but rather a technical reality.

In short, this new Grand Strategy is a de facto end to the traditional American Constitutional system. If it is fully adopted, and all indications are that this is what is occurring, our free system is in immediate jeopardy.

I am an optimist, and I believe that the best America and the world have to offer is still ahead. Yet in a nation of laws, in a society where the fine print of contracts, statutes, judicial dicta, executive agency policies and treaties are our higher law, this new Grand Strategy promises to rewrite our entire system in a few agencies dominated by unelected international experts and almost entirely out of the public’s eye. This is not a republic or democracy, but a true technocracy.

Again, the result will be elections where we vote our passions but where little changes no matter which candidates win each campaign.

In such a world, the fine print in our treaties will run the show, though few will realize what is happening or understand why our freedoms and economy are constantly in decline no matter which party we put in charge of Washington.

It is hard to overstate just how significant this current change is in our world. Freedom is literally at stake.

5. Solutions

We don’t need better leaders or public officials as near as much as we need better citizens. Historically, the American founders knew that freedom could only last if regular citizens had the same level of education as our Governors, Senators, Judges, experts and Presidents.

When any nation is divided between, on one hand, a class of political experts who read and understand the fine print of what is really happening and, on the other hand, the rest of the people who don’t read or get involved in such intricate details, freedom is inevitably lost.

There are no exceptions to this in history.

We will either become such citizens, or our freedoms will be lost.

If this is too much to ask of modern citizens, then freedom is too much for us to handle. Just consider what Samuel Williams, a Harvard professor in the American founding era, said about the average education of American children in 1794:

“All the children are trained up to this kind of knowledge: they are accustomed from their earliest years to read the Holy Scriptures, the periodical publications, newspapers, and political pamphlets; to form some general acquaintance with the laws of their country, the proceedings of the courts of justice, of the general assembly of the state, and of the Congress, etc.

“Such a kind of education is common and universal in every part of the state: and nothing would be more dishonorable to the parents, or to the children, than to be without it.”

Such people were deep readers. And the freedoms they fought for and maintained showed it. The only way to get back such freedoms is to once again become such citizens. What is needed, regardless of what the experts in Washington do, is a widespread grassroots grand strategy of becoming the kind of citizens and voters who are truly capable of maintaining freedom.

(For more on how to become this kind of citizen and reader, see the book A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille.)

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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Culture &Current Events &Entrepreneurship &Foreign Affairs &Generations &Government &Leadership &Liberty &Prosperity &Statesmanship

What to Look for in 2012

January 3rd, 2012 // 11:26 am @ Oliver DeMille

Here are some things to consider in 2012, several possible trends which could make significant changes in our world by the end of the year ahead:

Barring major events, the news of 2012 will most likely be all about the election, especially the presidential election.But the real potential for election change will be in the Congress.The most important determinant of how America will run after the 2012 election will be whether Congress remains split or if one party gains control of both houses—regardless of what happens in the presidential race.This won’t be the media focus, but those who understand American politics will keep their eye on the coming changes in Congress.
More Democrats are arguing for less government spending.[i]This shift in thinking is getting very little press because the election story is so dominant in the current media.Since few Democrats are using this frustration with government spending as a reason to vote for non-Democrat candidates, it receives sparse coverage.But it is a significant change, regardless.Many Republicans and most independents and moderates believe that Washington spends too much already.
If more Democrats continue to adopt the same view, it may become a major story in the years ahead.
The credit rating agencies that downgraded the U.S. credit rating in 2011 are still very closely watching the U.S. economy and some indications are that further downgrades could be ahead if the economy continues to struggle.Along with this, for the first time in many decades, U.S. securities are less stable than some other investments,[ii]and money flow away from the U.S. is increasing—especially since the middle of 2011.If these trends continue, U.S. economic challenges could drastically worsen in the next twenty months.
Some leaders in Saudi Arabia have voiced concerns about how the U.S. handled Egypt, especially President Mubarak, during the 2011 Arab Spring.[iii]As the popular uprising grew, the Obama Administration eventually suggested that Mubarak step down.Regardless of whether or not this was the right approach, the sentiment among some Saudi and other Middle Eastern leaders goes something like this: “If that’s how the U.S. treats its allies, do we really want to trust Washington for anything?”Ironically, many in Israel are feeling the same emotion.Add to this the under-reported influence of Saudi investors in major European and U.S. businesses and banks, and this trend may be the most impactful in years to come.
Western economic dependency on Middle East oil is well known, but the bigger danger may come from direct investment in businesses and banks.

If massive sums of Petro Dollars were pulled from Western banks, for example, the term “too big to fail” would take on a whole new meaning.
We have been warned about cyber terrorism for some time now. Is 2012 the year?
Will Israel bomb an Iranian nuclear facility?[iv]If so, how will the Obama Administration react?
Ironically, a focus on jobs may finally become a focus in Washington during the election year of 2012. The bad news is that the parties are unlikely to work together to make real changes.Hopefully, this turns out to be untrue, but if current trends continue little will actually occur.

The good news in all this is that a relatively few changes would bring a drastic positive change in momentum and infuse the nation with positive innovative energy.

For example, four changes could establish a massive change of direction and rebirth of American success (like the shift in American perspective which occurred when Reagan took over leadership from Carter).

The four include:

1) a rollback of all federal policies since 2000 that have hurt small business and dis-incentivized innovation, growth and hiring

2) an effective long-term policy to fix the problem with entitlements, balance the budget and get control of our national debt

3) a restructuring of American education funding to support technical training, community colleges and other non-traditional methods to increase the competitiveness of our workforce

4) a move away from international invasions and wars abroad while maintaining a strong national security presence

I am not predicting that these will occur, but they would be greatly beneficial to the nation if they did.

Finally, each year brings its share of surprises.

For example, who could have guessed in 2010 that the year ahead would bring the death of Osama bin Laden or the refusal of the White House to take leadership in a serious jobs plan?

Whatever comes in 2012, America needs to get its financial house in order and re-incentivize business growth and hiring.

These are vital priorities.

[i] Meet the Press, December 25, 2011

[ii] Face the Nation, December 25, 2011

[iii] Meet the Press, December 25, 2011

[iv] The Atlantic predicted that this might happen in 2011.

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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Current Events &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Featured &Government &Leadership &Politics

The Amazing (Ironic/Tragic) Debate

November 19th, 2011 // 2:15 pm @ Oliver DeMille

There is a truly amazing debate happening right now in the United States. It would actually be comical if it weren’t so potentially tragic for America’s future. This debate is not any—or all—of the Republican Presidential Debates. Nor is it some formal debate taking place on television, the Internet or a university campus.

It is a cultural debate, a large-scale argument playing out in millions of discussions online, thousands of opinions and rants from the talking heads in the media, and – most dramatically – fought indirectly between the Tea Partiers and the Occupy Wall Street crowds.

Most of this debate is taking place in emotional and passionately charged ways, rather than in clear, concise intellectual dialog. Still, a quick look at the two intellectual arguments is instructive.

Some say that the divide between the rich and the rest is increasing each year. More to the point, the structural division between the upper classes and the other classes is becoming less porous and less elastic. Social mobility—which was once the American keynote—is steadily eroding.

A majority of Americans now feel that their children will have a lower standard of living than they did; many feel that the rising generation in China will have more opportunity than our American youth. The American Dream is over in this view, and things seem likely to get worse before they get better—if they ever get better.

I wrote about this reality a few years ago in my book The Coming Aristocracy, and it remains one of the most significant challenges of our time. It is presently a major catalyst of current trends and of our evolving future. Unless things change direction, an aristocracy is coming to America. Indeed, it is already almost entrenched.

In a typical debate, the opposing view would argue that such a divide is not occurring, or that it is a good thing for America – or even that it is a minor trend that will be offset by some larger reality. But this is no typical debate. In an interesting twist, all sides of the current amazing debate accept this truth—the divide between the rich and the rest is real, and it is a major challenge in our century.

The debate is about how to fix this problem.

One side of the debate wants government to solve the problems, the other side wants government to get out of the way so the people can resolve things. It’s More Government against More Free Enterprise.

The More Government side argues for higher taxes, more government relief, increased government spending, more government jobs programs, increased government training options, improved government education, and more regulations. It is summed up in the title of Thomas Frank’s recent article in Harpers: “More Government, Please!”

In contrast, the More Free Enterprise side promotes fewer government regulations, reduced or at least no hikes in taxation, lower corporate rates to boost America’s competitiveness in the world economy in the, decreased government spending, less government borrowing and printing of money, and smaller government.

This side wants the era of big government to truly, finally, be over,[i] or, at the very least, for us to realize that our government must stop shutting down or undermining the free enterprise incentives that are the basis of all historical prosperity and freedom.

The More Government side tries to convince the nation that the Free Enterprise side “Hates Government,” or “Hates the Poor.” Too many on the Free Enterprise side characterize the ideas of the More Government side as “Hating Freedom” or “Hating Small Business.” Both of these characterizations are flawed.

Many who argue mainly for government solutions also feel deeply the need for government to be checked and balanced, while many who support answers mainly by private enterprise feel great pride and trust in the potential for good by our government and consider its success vital to society. Most people on both sides care about freedom and also want to help the underprivileged and struggling. Most people on both sides want government and business to be successful. Most people from both sides want the government to be fiscally responsible. They just have an honest disagreement about the best way to do these things.

Some want to label one side of the debate Democratic and the other Republican, but this simply isn’t the case. Government spending, government programs, and the regulatory load increased drastically—drastically!—under the Republican administrations of Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Bush and Bush and also under the Democratic leadership F. Roosevelt, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama. Note that these things also increased under Truman, Kennedy and Reagan, but at least these three presidents made a loud and energetic case for proper limits on government. In short, both political parties have proven effective supporters of the More Government side of the debate.

The one big difference, the most fundamental divide, between the More Government and More Free Enterprise sides is this: one believes we need more government force right now, the other that we need more freedom and incentives right now.

For this reason, I am on the side of free enterprise.

The government has a vital role to play in our society. Without it, none of our freedoms will last. But government power must be wisely limited, and the best articulation of the right level of limits on our government is found in the U.S. Constitution. More to the point, the government today may or may not be too big, but its massive regulatory load and anti-business policies are clearly hurting the economy and fueling an increased class divide in society. They are keeping our economy down because they don’t incentive economic innovation or growth.

The reason I call this debate “amazing” is simple: It is both surprising and indeed shocking that anyone who has read history can believe that force is a more effective way to freedom than free incentives. One side of this debate seems committed to using government force to fix our economic problems, even though all through history free economies, minimal regulation and limited governments have consistently been the forerunners and partners of economic success and high economic mobility.

It is simply amazing that we still haven’t figured this out. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this debate is that anyone still argues that more government force in our current model will spread more freedom, prosperity, or social mobility. There is no historical evidence for this, and overwhelming evidence of the opposite.

Freedom works. Why is anyone arguing that we give more support to government force? If the Republican Presidential Debates, and the ongoing responses from the White House, are about real solutions, they will be all about the government effectively incentivizing free enterprise. If the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street events are about real solutions, they’ll promote ways to more effectively incentive free enterprise.

As long as government force is the dominant factor in our economy, things are going to get worse. The Bush-Obama economic environment we live in combines stifling regulations with massive government spending and uncertainty about what Washington will do next. This dis-incentivizes growth, hiring, and investment in the U.S.; meanwhile, business moves to foreign economies with better incentives.

Unemployment lingers above 9%, and the real number when we include all who are underemployed is pushing 20%. The mortgage bubble may not have reached its lowest collapse, and inflation or deflation appear imminent. In response, the White House now recommends more government spending, regulations and programs.

This is a truly amazing debate. The more the government regulates and spends, the worse the economy fares. As a result, the government seeks to spend more. And a lot of the American people think this is a good idea.

Many Americans were shocked into political activism by the Great Recession, where the average household lost 3.2% of its income.[ii] Since the Great Recession ended, during the so-called Recovery, the average household has lost an additional 6.7%.[iii] Are we simply scared into submission? Are we crying out to the government to fix things, because we are deeply terrified that nobody else will? Is that why so many people believe that government force is more likely to boost our economy than free enterprise?

The amazing question remains: Given all of history, how can anyone take the Force side of the current great debate?

Seriously?

Endnotes

[i] Bill Clinton, who said that the era of big government is over, has addressed a number of these same challenges in his book, Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy. There is much to agree and also disagree with this book, and it is an important read for interested Americans.

[ii] Harpers, December 2011.

[iii] Ibid.

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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Aristocracy &Blog &Current Events &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Generations &Government &Prosperity