Better Prosperity

Steve Soderlind

Description

This book surveys America’s experience with prosperity and progressive justice. Addressing contemporary division, polarization, and political paralysi, it ruminates on justice as the best way forward.
This timely and thoughtful volume tracks the American experiment with special attention to justice and prosperity. Its wide-ranging survey begins with historical notes and culminates with reflections on twenty-first century chaos and confusion. Lies, fabrications, and simplistic thinking now complicate and confuse the nation—to the despair of millions. In that light, this essay imagines frontiers of justice, based on truth and intelligence, that might kindle a workable consensus and a brighter era of affluence. Referencing germane insights from economics, sociology, psychology, and social choice, the issue is whether justice and prosperity might come together in a virtuous cycle. The author is cautiously hopeful, noting barriers and obstructions that are likely to threaten any such blossoming.
While assessing issues of the day, the author ponders several enduring questions:
• Does prosperity thrive best with minimal, timid government?
• Can a new social norm, more devoted to justice and less to unfettered liberty, lead to a workable political consensus?
• Might a blossoming of fresh thinking bring America back to the table of respectful compromise?
In the end, all Americans operate in a constitutional setting, and in that context, everyone participates in shaping the nation and its prosperity. Join the author as he considers how we can promote a more truthful and respectful brand of capitalism.

Sujets

• justice
• Economics
• Business

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 17 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665727365
• Langue: English

Extrait

BETTER PROSPERITY
 
ON JUSTICE AND AFFLUENCE IN AMERICA
 
 
STEVE SODERLIND
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Steve Soderlind.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
 
Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2735-8 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2734-1 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2736-5 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022913585
 
 
Archway Publishing rev. date: 08/17/2022
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
PART 1: SETTING
Chapter 1Enlightenment Roots
Chapter 2Liberty and Justice
Chapter 3Whence We’ve Come
Chapter 4Concerning Prosperity
Chapter 5Twenty-First-Century Disarray
PART 2: CHOOSING JUSTICE
Chapter 6The Example of Consumer Protection
Chapter 7Concerning Government
Chapter 8Social Economics
Chapter 9Exemplars
PART 3: FRONTIERS OF JUSTICE
Chapter 10Classical Laissez-Faire
Chapter 11Distributional Justice
Chapter 12Race and Gender
Chapter 13Regional Disparities
Chapter 14Intergenerational Justice
Chapter 15Environmental Justice
PART 4: INSTRUMENTS AND BARRIERS
Chapter 16Instruments
Chapter 17Obstructions: Falsehoods, Polemics, and Ideologies
Chapter 18On Social Evolution
Chapter 19Misconceptions
PART 5: ENVISIONING PROGRESS
Chapter 20Mill’s Anticipation
Chapter 21Justice in Economic Theory
Chapter 22Goals and Outcomes
Chapter 23Government: Large/Small, Assertive/Timid
Chapter 24Better Prosperity
Bibliography
PREFACE
This book invites readers to examine justice and prosperity in America. It arises against a backdrop of social division, presumed trade-offs, and concern about invasive government. As a primer, it will introduce fundamental concepts and leave readers with plenty of issues to ponder: How should justice vie with liberty in shaping our nation’s prosperity? Can a blossoming of justice save America from political polarization and paralysis? Is it true that prosperity matches best with minimal or timid government?
Approaching justice and prosperity as goals with constitutional government and private enterprise as means, the examination will emphasize social and historical context. It will incorporate ideas from eminent thinkers, Adam Smith to Milton Friedman (emphasizing liberty) and Karl Marx to Joseph Schumpeter (emphasizing tumult), not to mention venerable philosophical and theological perspectives, Plato and Aristotle to Rawls and Niebuhr. Beyond historical and intellectual perspectives, the discussion will note social and psychological barriers to justice and prosperity in contemporary America, increasingly important in this era of rising seas and polarizing propaganda. Many readers will be dismayed at the array of challenges on the threshold of greater affluence.
The Trump administration shook the foundations of public policy to “make America great again.” Unfortunately, it proved to be backward-looking, divisive, and clumsy, leaving the nation close to the brink. President Biden inherited a landscape of division and pandemic, encouraging the nation to “build back better.” Hopefully this little book will help set the stage for productive episodes ahead.
In the end, all of our institutions—government, law, education, private enterprise, et cetera—operate in a constitutional setting, subject to political review and modification. Legislatures, courts, administrators, corporations, immigrants, clerics, teachers, cops, voters, chefs, and more, participate in shaping the nation and its prosperity.
Steve Soderlind
Apple Valley, Minnesota
June 2022
INTRODUCTION
Two documents from 1776 have framed the American experiment: the Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations . Each envisioned social gain on the shoulders of liberty from autocratic rule. Together, they set the stage for our constitutional republic and market economy. 1
The experiment has unfolded in history, beginning with the norms and expectations of the eighteenth century. In particular, the Constitution, ratified in 1788, allowed white males to reap disproportionately the benefits of progress, which left plenty of room for “a more perfect union.” Women, African Americans, and First Nations were sorely disadvantaged at the founding, subjugated and often abused. Heretics, homosexuals, and witches were considered evil beyond the pale.
Building on a favorable climate, vast resources, daring ventures, slavery, and freewheeling markets, economic expansion proceeded to lift economic prospects, but not without amplifying political tensions over federalism and states’ rights. After a bloody civil war, several amendments to the Constitution disassembled the domestic institution of slavery, but even as African Americans won full constitutional citizenship, including the right to vote, they remained subjugated with scant recourse to courts. Pervasive racism led to Jim Crow, KKK terror, and sanctioned segregation as the rights of African Americans were widely overlooked. Meanwhile, women were excluded from voting, contracting, and most professions, held down by the expectation of domestic subservience.
The twentieth century witnessed women’s suffrage, social security, civil and voting rights legislation, and unprecedented prosperity. Title IX raised prospects for young women, but challenges still pestered at the millennium: America’s minorities faced continuing discrimination and resurgent aggression; its prisons were full; and declining rural regions felt snubbed and mistreated by powerful metro areas. Wealth was highly concentrated, and inheritance favored family fortunes into the future. 2
The twenty-first century found the nation increasingly polarized over job losses, abortion, immigration, and race. Millions of Americans faced epidemics of addiction, obesity, violence, and infectious COVID-19. And, as if that were not enough, several long-term threats prodded: rising seas, destructive fires, and unprecedented storms. America became fertile ground for social tensions.
On one side, thoughtful conservative leaders continue to press an optimistic vision of small government and free, unregulated markets, traditionally called laissez-faire. 3 They claim to have distilled this practical stand from respected economists, referencing the likes of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Milton Friedman. They also take heart from astute reflections on Soviet communism associated with Ayn Rand, William Buckley Jr., and Pat Buchanan, to name a few. Lately, they seem inclined to limit immigration, franchise, and the influence of scientific findings on matters from global warming to American history.
On the other side, thoughtful liberals warn that timid government undermines progressive liberty by tacitly condoning racial and gender discrimination, domestic extremists, concentrated power, religious chauvinism, et cetera. Many see the Great Recession and America’s clumsy approach to COVID-19 as nasty consequences of toying with timid government. 4 Looking ahead, they see consequential problems calling for concerted efforts by energetic governments around the world. Climate change, environmental deterioration, pandemic, and insidious propaganda frighten them.
After the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and given the churn of social tensions, it’s a fair hunch that the nation’s best path forward would be a blossoming of respectful justice. In that light, several questions arise: Can a new balance, more devoted to justice and less to unfettered liberty, gain consensus? Can justice and prosperity be mutually reinforcing, giving rise to a virtuous cycle? Is it the case that prosperity matches best with minimal or timid government? Can a blossoming of justice save America from political polarization and paralysis?
The goal of this little book is to provide a relatively balanced view of justice and prosperity in light of those important questions. As a primer, it surveys a vast territory, spotting grand features and encouraging deeper investigation. Hopefully, readers will appreciate the portrait, questions, and prompts as they investigate in more depth.
This line of inquiry could be crucially important. As John Rawls put it, “Laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.” 5 Long before, on June 16, 1858, Abraham Lincoln warned more desperately: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
PART I SETTING
We begin with elements of American identity and history. The discussion will be brief, highlighting trajectories, predicaments, and prospects. A theme of concern will be the role of government in America’s constitutional republic.
CHAPTER ON E ENLIGHTENMENT ROOTS
A merica arose with a concept—liberty for all—tracing its identity relative to objectionable circumsta