State of the Union- A change in perspective

State of the Union : a change in perspective

I found the overall frame of President Obama’s State of the Union speech  most interesting, the U.S. economy needs to grow to catch up with other countries.  “We need to Out-Innovate, Out Educate, and Out-Build  the rest of the world,” or  our own standard of living will continue to decline.

This speech accepts the end of U.S. economic domination of the world economy a perspective made clear in the world wide financial crisis of 2007/2009.  The U.S. based corporations need to invest and the U.S. government needs to invest in crating a new future.

This change in perspective is not great, but it is realistic.

The  promise  of America should be a good job for all,  the opportunity to have  a rewarding career, and the chance for a life that is more than simply the workplace.  The austerity paradigm underlying the tax and budget cut mania is the enemy of human progress.  It does not promote good jobs, rewarding   careers, nor a fulfilling life.

And, this from the N.Y.Times

Financial Crisis Was Avoidable, Inquiry Finds

By SEWELL CHAN

WASHINGTON — The 2008 financial crisis was an “avoidable” disaster caused by widespread failures in government regulation, corporate mismanagement and heedless risk-taking by Wall Street, according to the conclusions of a federal inquiry. [Chaired by Sacramentan Phil Angelides]

The commission that investigated the crisis casts a wide net of blame, faulting two administrations, the Federal Reserve and other regulators for permitting a calamitous concoction: shoddy mortgage lending, the excessive packaging and sale of loans to investors and risky bets on securities backed by the loans.

“The greatest tragedy would be to accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming and thus nothing could have been done,” the panel wrote in the report’s conclusions, which were read by The New York Times. “If we accept this notion, it will happen again.”

While the panel, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, accuses several financial institutions of greed, ineptitude or both, some of its gravest conclusions concern government failings, with embarrassing implications for both parties. But the panel was itself divided along partisan lines, which could blunt the impact of its findings.

Responding to The State of the Union

In Writings of Obama, a Philosophy Is Unearthed

Duane Campbell

         The book Reading Obama may well offer some significant insights into the political viewpoints of President Obama.   In addition, it is a prolonged essay concerning how the author sees the political philosophy of pragmatism and a history of how pragmatism has served in the U.S.

         There are several interesting issues.  Can a scholar describe well the political philosophy of an important leader by reading books by the President and reading the transcripts of his speeches?   Is it far too early to be describing the philosophy of Barack Obama after only two years in office?

            I found the book delightful in a number of ways.  I particularly enjoyed Prof. Kloppenberg’s descriptions of the development of pragmatism as a political philosophy.    The book is as much an essay on pragmatism as it is a description of the Obama philosophy.  That is, the author is promoting intellectual pragmatism as a preferred philosophy and using the Obama experience as device to describe concrete implementation issues of pragmatism and the ascendance of pragmatism as a philosophy.

            Certainly Barack Obama, as described by Kloppenberg, is a significant intellectual.  I am uncomfortable with the device of describing a viewpoint held by one or another of Obama’s professors at Harvard and then asserting that Barack Obama learned and adopted this particular position., or the summary of a position taken by a professor in the Harvard Law Review while Obama was editor and assuming that Obama adopted this particular nuanced position.   This seems to me over interpretation. 

            We know from the book that Kloppenberg has great respect for the faculty of the Harvard Law School and the faculty at Occidental College.  He assumes that when a professor teaches an idea the students adopt that idea.   This could, I assume be investigated.  A researcher could look at the distinct ideas taught by some of the leading scholars at Harvard and then look to see if these ideas are clearly taught or professed when Barack Obama was an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago.  But, I don’t think Kloppenberg has done this research.   Instead he finds someone to make a comment that Barack Obama adopted the idea from one of his professors.

            Fro me to be more  confident of the correlation, I would need to know- for example- what are the philosophies of Barack Obama’s major economic advisors Larry Summers, Laura Tyson, Tim Geithner.  If they have diverse philosophies how do we know that Obama is being a pragmatist or is he taking advice from experts in a field?  And, I would like to know the philosophies of major allies such as Richard Trumka and major opponents such as Senator Mitch Mc Connel. 

            Of course , as the author argues, we all learn from our predecessors.  After all, this book is about pragmatism which is a philosophy which many have learned from our predecessors  William James and John Dewey, among others.

            Kloppenberg reports on major intellectual issues that were current as Barack Obama was a graduate student, an editor,and then President  of the Harvard Law Review.  The  significant intellectual history of U.S. letters  in a leading law school provided in  the book is valuable in its own right. However, the connection to the intellectual history and Obama’s own philosophical positions is tenuous, suggestive  not proven.  Further, the connection of these theories to actual behavior as a President is even more indirect.  There may be direction connections, but it would require self reflection or other direct evidence to demonstrate the connections.

             In current major issues such as the extension of the Bush era tax cuts for millionaires  it is not clear that Obama’s intellectual pragmatism is at work or is the political analysis of the power of his opposition producing these results.  Which, of course, is what pragmatism would instruct, that you need to consider the political terrain and positions of your adversaries.

            The  book describes the detailed and interesting debates on philosophy, pragmatism,  the role of  Dewey,  John Rawles,  Kuhn, and others, critical legal theory, communitarianism,  and the several major intellectual debates that were vigorous while Obama was at Harvard, and some of the debates today.  Kloppenberg does not  the examine a closely related question. An implied thesis of Reading Obama is that the intellectual fervor shaped Barack Obama, and now that he is President, these intellectual debates guide and influence public policy. 

 Having taught at both an elite university and a second tier public state university for over 35 years,  I am less certain that  the intellectual dialogues  at the elite universities determine, shape, describe, or even matter in the daily life of  the great majority of people in the U.S.

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