The High Road

1
The High Road

• A values based communications framework for
  progressive economics
• Dan Ancona
• May 2007 Revision

2
Part I Values
3
What we stand for

• Dems at -28 in 2005
• Despite lots of interesting discussions1 weve
  made close to zero progress communicating this to
  the general public.

1 Some can be found here http//www.dkosopedia.
com/wiki/Progressive
4
Progressives arenot moral relativists
5
we value INTERDEPENDENCE and SUBSTANTIAL
FREEDOM
Conservatives are mainly about defending moral
orders and expanding the freedom that comes from
property rights. (i.e. stuff) Progressives are
mainly about realizing interdependence and
expanding substantial freedom. (i.e. cognitive
liberty)
Advantages No mushy, confusing and inaccurate
family metaphors. No trace of moral relativism.
Historically grounded. Simple. Easily memorized.
Relatively complete. Dovetails nicely with common
good and other frameworks.
Disadvantages They own the word freedom, and
interdependence is an unfamiliar term.
6
Realizing interdependence
(a.k.a. solidarity, a.k.a. why cities are so blue)
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable
network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of
destiny. MLK

• The ethic of connectedness (Bill Bradley) that
  city dwellers share is why cities are so blue.
• Land use is incredibly important. (c.f. Kirwan
  Institute)

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we
find it hitched to everything else in
the Universe. John Muir
See also http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdepend
ence
7
Expanding substantial freedom
Substantial freedom is the opportunity we have as
humans to realize our full potential. It can not
be optimized individually. This is what takes a
village. (or better yet, a city) This is why
conservatism doesnt work.
Were starting to take it back Amartya Sen
Development as Freedom George Lakoff Whose
freedom anyway? Paul Starr Freedoms Power John
Schwartz Freedom Reclaimed The Opportunity
Agenda Many other books, organizations and efforts
8
Russell Kirks 10 Conservative Principles and
ours
More http//speakoutca.org/archives/2006/06/found
ations_iii.php
9
Part II The High Road
10
Landscape

• The Economic Policy Institute's Agenda for Shared
  Prosperity
• The Center for Community Change, especially their
  Taproots and Movement Vision projects
• The Drum Major Institute's Middle Class Squeeze
  2007
• The Third Way's The New Rules Economy
• Demos' Economic Opportunity Program
• The Opportunity Agenda, in particular their Six
  Core Values
• The Campaign for America's Future Straight Talk
• Citizens for Tax Justice's Talking Taxes
• The Brookings Institutions' Hamilton Project

Tens of thousands of pages of outstanding,
thorough and inspiring research that the vast
majority of voters find utterly incomprehensible.
11
Hunger for a New Story
Voters disapprove of government
performance... ... and solid majorities want
more involvement
The food is terrible. And such small portions!
GQR 3/7/07 http//democracycorps.com/reports/anal
yses/Democracy_Corps_February_28_2007_Graphs.pdf
12
To tell that story, we needcommon principles

• secure basic freedoms
• invest in people and the future
• democratize economic power
• build the green economy
• housebreak capitalism
• globalize this approach

This is the 2nd and a ½ way. It has a name, and a
small enough number of points that they can be
remembered easily after 2 glasses of wine.
13
Secure basic freedoms.

• FDR's Four Freedoms and his Economic Bill of
  Rights are good templates for this housing,
  health care, useful work, education, and basic
  economic security are all basic rights that the
  federal government can and absolutely should play
  a role in securing.
• Without a basic level of security, people can't
  even get to the kind of freedom and opportunity
  that is so central to progressivism the freedom
  that is the fruit of cognitive liberty, the
  potential to develop one's self as fully as
  possible. Securing these basic freedoms is the
  aim of social justice and it is the heart of the
  high road.

14
Invest in people.

• To compete in the 21st century, we need to take
  our education and research system to the next
  level. Financial resources aren't the only thing
  the system needs, but they are certainly part of
  it. There is a bottom-line rationale for beating
  structural racism and fairly distributing
  educational resources and opportunity simply,
  its because tax cuts don't create jobs, people
  do. The job creating leaders of tomorrow will be
  new immigrants and inner-city kids, if we give
  them a chance.

Pics see http//www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04
/robot.html
15
Democratize wealth.

• Unions, progressive taxation, minimum and living
  wage laws, and employee ownership all have one
  thing in common they democratize economic power
  and wealth. This is a good thing, and we can't be
  afraid to say so.
• The American people are good and tired of being
  trickled down on.

16
Build the green economy.

• The long-time argument against building the green
  economy - that it would cost too much - sounds
  increasingly nonsensical in the days of 50 and
  rising barrels of oil. The dangers and costs of
  not doing anything are far, far greater. Markets
  are tools for solving problems, not ends unto
  themselves. We should use both markets and public
  policy to solve environmental problems.
• We are way behind on this as a civilization. We
  need to start now.

17
Housebreak capitalism.

• Capitalism is just like a puppy it's great, but
  it has a tendency to make messes. An American
  Prospect article last May used just the right
  frame for how to approach this it needs to be
  housebroken. The right wing is always accusing us
  of trying to kill the puppy, but this is an
  absurd argument. Progressives are fine with
  capitalism, at least until we come up with
  something better, and the search for that
  something better is a critical part of the
  movement and the research it's engaged in. But in
  the meantime, it's time to stop having to clean
  capitalism's messes off the rug.
• To do this, we need to rebuild peoples trust in
  government. This wont be easy. The first step is
  to stop reinforcing right wing, anti-government
  frames.

18
Globalize this approach.

• The purpose of our trade policies, other than
  opening up international markets to our products,
  should be to encourage other countries. We can
  avoid races to the bottom, but only if we
  deliberately use our market power to compel our
  trading partners to avoid them.

19
Conclusions

• We need to come to agreement on some of the
  basics and how we talk about them. This is
  perhaps unfortunately, since we love to disagree
  - critical to our effectiveness as a movement.
• The good news is we can still disagree like crazy
  on everything else, from research to policy to
  implementation to tactics.

20
Contact

• Dan Ancona
• dan_at_anconastrategy.com
• 415.373.8972
• Thanks!

http//creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/