Competing utopian political projects

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Reporting in Opposition

Competing utopian political projects

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

April 8, 2005

If you're lucky, you read the Orient last week and caught my colleague Ben Peisch's column, "Saving society from the seven deadly sins." In response to my complaint that the President's social security plan "has no safeguard for hubris," Peisch suggested that by that logic, government ought to take up complete moral responsibility for Americans.

What then, is the difference between Peisch's utopian political project and a truly equitable progressive approach to morality? Since it remains so topical, let's stick with the social security example. By arguing the absurdity of its converse, Peisch claims that the government has no responsibility to "prevent us from committing any of [the seven deadly sins]." This is a classic, well-established conservative position: individuals should take personal responsibility for their actions. Even the most liberal amongst Bowdoin's sleepy political populace should feel the tug of this argument in their hearts. If an individual is one, too shortsighted to prepare or manage their own retirement funds ahead of time or two, too hubristic or simply incapable of managing the private accounts offered in the new plan, why should anyone, government or otherwise, bail them out?

It's a good question. Individual freedoms are at the very heart of America's political tradition, and a commitment to personal responsibility flows along with that current. We must keep the government out of private actions, or risk falling into some sort of Orwellian protective state that maintains stability at the cost of liberty. Far be it from the government to prescribe any hierarchy of values to its own citizens, let alone the citizens of other nations that happen to have large oil reserves!

But what if complete or near-complete government withdrawal from the sphere of values showed that unrestricted individual action resulted in brutal inequality? It's not so hard to imagine that the playing field isn't naturally so level after all. To return to our social security example, let's consider which citizens would be the least capable of handling a private retirement account. They would undoubtedly be the least educated citizens; those who persisted in making the terrible decisions that ruin their lives.

The data show that by the end of high school, only one in 30 Latino students and one in one 100 African-American students can solve basic algebra problems that one in ten white students can complete satisfactorily. Why? Perhaps because 70 percent of African Americans and more than 33 percent of Latinos attend "intensely segregated schools" in urban areas. Schools in poor districts receive far less funding than their wealthier counterparts, and very few are capable of producing equal results.

This is an ethical challenge to all of us as Americans. The data show a clear systemic bias against broad segments of our population. From no fault of their own, individuals of all skin colors are born into shattered families facing enormous pressures that we can hardly imagine. Do we benefit from the suffering of the poor? What do we owe them? Can we face an aging citizen who has squandered her retirement in the market and turn our backs? There is a point where we must accept that the more fortunate in our society should be willing to sacrifice resources to the government to help provide even the least fortunate with a chance. Complete equality of opportunity cannot be an end, of course, unless we accept Peisch's scenario of complete governmental control.

I maintain, however, that our individual responsibility is not purely personal, since certain individuals face pressures and responsibilities endemic to our system, out of no fault of their own. Until we as a nation are capable of developing a more just society in which all Americans begin life without having to answer for actions that are not their responsibility, government must work to protect those that it fails to prepare for the complicated world we have created. We must ask ourselves if democracy should maintain a large population of impoverished citizens which it exploits regularly, or whether we are called to a higher responsibility.

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