A Liberal Thanksgiving We hear much less nonsense about the wisdom of markets these days.
By THOMAS FRANK
NOVEMBER 24, 2009, 9:33 P.M. ET.
The positive psychologists tell us that being thankful makes us healthy and happy. For entirely selfish reasons, it seems, we need to show lots of gratitude as we go through life. And with Thanksgiving coming up, I figure it's time to get with the program.
But what to be thankful for? These are anxious times, with staggering unemployment and record numbers of bank failures.
According to a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report, the percentage of households that are "food insecure," to use the preferred term, rose to its highest level since 1995, when the current technique for measuring hunger came into use. (Among households with children, the percentage who are "food insecure" is a stunning 21%.)
On the other hand, Wall Street banks are on track to hand out record bonuses to their employees. A few years ago, this would by itself have been cause for rejoicing, and not merely around the groaning tables of the lucky bonus-winners. All our great gray organs of consensus opinion would have helped to steer our gratitude in the right direction. Society is becoming more unequal, they might have allowed, but in the long run we all stand to benefit from Wall Street's prosperity. After all, just look at the soaring Dow Jones Industrial Average. The market is simply directing resources to where they will do the most good, rewarding the geniuses who guide society's investment and encouraging us all to work harder to claim our own piece of the bounty.
The correct response, back in those addled days, would have been something like the catechism urged on us by T. Harv Eker in his book "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind": "Place your hand on your heart and say . . . 'I admire rich people!' / 'I bless rich people!' / 'I love rich people!' / 'And I'm going to be one of those rich people too!'"
But who takes this kind of pledge today? The great gray dealers in consensus wisdom are dropping all around us. Just about the only ones who still believe in omniscient markets anymore are the think-tankers who are paid to believe in it.
The rest of us have moved on to something harsher, more realistic. Indeed, the only reason I know about the quotation from Mr. Eker is because I found it in Barbara Ehrenreich's book, "Bright-Sided," an attack on positive thinking that, in its refusal of optimistic delusions, seems in step with the new national mood.
Maybe that prickly new mood is what I should be thankful for. Americans are finally paying attention to issues like financial regulation. We're reading headlines about Ponzi schemes and not instantly brushing them off as irrelevant buzzkill.
The change is noticeable even among the pundit corps. Ideas this august group once dismissed out of hand are now being taken seriously. The concept of regulatory capture, for example, was once regarded as a form of conspiracy theory; today it's a firmly established social-scientific principle.
Thanks to the legislative fight over health care, even the fetish of centrism has started to lose its glow, as it slowly dawns on the commentariat—and maybe, one of these days, on the Obama administration, too—that an idea's validity isn't established by whether its equidistant between two talking points.
Conservatives deserve thanks, too. While the tea party set may be groping toward the answers in entirely the wrong way, at least they are asking the right questions. By demanding that the administration explain its actions toward the big banks and defend the idea of social insurance, they have ensured that mushy clichés won't work for the next few election cycles. For that, I think, they deserve our gratitude.
The old order, meanwhile, has slouched off to a distant college campus and delivered its effects into the hands of archivists and librarians. Last week saw the unveiling of the architectural plans for the George W. Bush Presidential Center, which is to be situated on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The thought of that newest presidential archive preparing to open its doors to scholars warmed this liberal's heart.
Part of the Bush Center will be a George W. Bush Institute, charged with "turn[ing] ideas into action," as its Web site puts it. The institute's executive director will be James K. Glassman, the co-author of "Dow 36,000."
Discovering this, I was struck by how cosmically correct it all was: This great Wall Street optimist will oversee the remnants of an administration whose members once pooh-poohed the "reality-based community," who thought voluntary compliance was a good way to regulate industry, who took almost no action to deflate the mortgage bubble, who anticipated being greeted in Iraq as liberators. Surely gracious providence brought them together. Let us give thanks.
Write to thomas@wsj.com.
online.wsj.com |
