Equality of opportunity is shrinking, and there is a growing national consensus that we must reverse this trend. Both political parties, as well as the public at large, share a reasonably sound understanding that distortions in our economy have led to stagnant wages for middle- and lower-income Americans with greater concentrations of wealth at the top.

A global economy that makes it profitable for American companies to export jobs to lower wage nations, technological advances that permit companies to replace workers with machines, high rates of unemployment that rob workers of bargaining power -- these are some of the main economic forces that create the inequality of opportunity eroding our social contract and driving American society into a hole. Now that we understand them, we are likely to move toward remedying the economic problems they create for us.

Unfortunately, we do not yet have an equally sound understanding of the non-economic forces exacerbating these problems. Economies don’t operate in a vacuum; their strengths and weaknesses depend on the larger political and ethical contexts of the society of which they are a part. That is why capitalism is so different in China, Russia, Brazil and Turkey than in the United States and its closest allies.

This is a truth that the founders of capitalism, like Adam Smith, recognized. Smith distinguished between enlightened and un-enlightened capitalism. Capitalism is enlightened when those who practice it bring to bear an ethical concern for others. Smith labeled this concern “moral sympathy,” which he believed to be hard-wired into our human nature.

Two centuries later we use different language but the ethical context is the same. Our giant corporations are expected to care for all of their constituents --employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers and the larger community in which they operate. This form of caring is referred to as an ethic of stewardship: a company’s top executives regard themselves as stewards of an enterprise that serves many others.

Without such an ethic, companies and individuals become exploitative; they abuse their great power for short-term gain at the expense of those they purportedly serve. Our great financial institutions, our most trusted banks and investment companies, were caught in this frenzy of uncaring, unethical, short-term, manipulative thinking that led to the Great Recession of 2007-8. It was this sort of behavior that memorably caused Goldman, Sachs to be compared to a giant vampire squid squeezing the life out of everything it touched.

No wonder our great nation now finds itself in a hole: the structural changes in our form of capitalism coincide with a marked deterioration in our social ethic of caring for others. A disastrous confluence.

Rebooting Democracy is a blog authored by Public Agenda co-founder Dan Yankelovich. While the views that Dan shares in his blog should not be interpreted as representing official Public Agenda positions, the purpose behind the blog and the spirit in which it is presented resonate powerfully with our values and the work that we do. To receive Rebooting Democracy in your inbox, subscribe here.

Except for kids themselves, just about everyone wants children to eat more fruits and vegetables. Even so, there’s plenty of disagreement about what government can or should do to make that happen.

For First Lady Michelle Obama, federal standards for more nutritious school lunches help “parents who are working hard to serve their kids balanced meals at home and don’t want their efforts undermined during the day at school.” But for critics, these standards are a costly and counterproductive example of government interference. They ask why “the federal government should make these decisions rather than parents, students and local school officials.”

The school lunch dispute is one of several that have emerged when governments -- federal, state, and local -- move beyond their traditional role of providing nutrition education and try to take stronger steps to combat the country’s rising obesity rates.

What’s Government’s Role?

Is there an appropriate and effective role for government in improving what we eat and helping us maintain healthier weights? What are Americans’ views here?

Some survey results suggest that Americans are ready to back broad government action to reduce obesity. Three-quarters of Americans say obesity and being overweight are very or extremely serious health care problems -- only cancer ranked higher in the public’s list. Spending proposals aimed at improving school nutrition, funding farmer’s markets and bike paths, and listing calorie counts on menus attract broad public support.

But a closer look at the surveys, along with research from Kettering and Public Agenda, shows support for government action on obesity may be much softer than it initially appears. Many people just don’t seem to be sure that government would be effective in addressing obesity or whether it should be delving into areas of personal choice and behavior. For example:

• Only a third of the public says government should be very involved in “finding solutions to this country’s obesity problem"
• The idea of using government funds to “reduce obesity by promoting healthy lifestyles” ranks next to last in a list of 15 different priorities for federal health care spending. Americans are far more likely to want government funds devoted to veterans’ health care and research to find new cures and treatments.

• Only about a third of Americans sees a role for “communities” in addressing obesity. More than half of the public believes that “maintaining a healthy weight” is something individuals should handle personally.
• Relatively few support taxing “unhealthy foods.” Even fewer want to limit their sale. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg ran into a public firestorm when he proposed banning the sale of 32-ounce sugary soft drinks in New York. Jon Stewart — quart-sized soda firmly in hand — was one of many comedians who had a little fun with the Mayor’s idea.

Are We Too Far Gone for Prevention?

The cynical take on these results is that this is just the predictable response from a sugar- and junk-food addicted nation. But focus groups by Kettering and Public Agenda suggest that there’s more involved than simple human frailty. Given the chance to deliberate on “prevention” as an option for curbing costs, many participants doubted that it would be effective. People raised a variety of concerns. One man talked about the conflicting messages people have gotten about what’s good for their health and which foods should be limited and which are fine. “[Prevention is] commonsense,” he said, “but we're sort of too far gone right now for it.”

Another man liked the idea of prevention because it “relies on our responsibility individually to take care of ourselves.” But he also believed that solving the health care cost challenge means going after “drug companies and the legislation that’s really driving up the cost drastically.”

Other participants were skeptical that people would or could change their habits even with more education and social messaging. A participant from Alabama talked about efforts to reduce diabetes: “The education is there. But we are still having plenty of diabetes. People are just not getting it. People are not taking care.” In New Jersey, another participant was just as doubtful: "I just [don’t] think [prevention is] feasible, because people are not going to take care of themselves like this, as a whole.”

In these discussions, many participants questioned whether government and community involvement could actually help people lead healthier lives. Few could envision how public policy could alter what is essentially personal behavior. After all, prohibition didn’t stop people from drinking. Some participants just seemed daunted by the scope of the challenge — and perhaps by their own repeated failures to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Yet, as opinion research has shown over and over again, Americans’ views often evolve over time as advocates make a robust and sustained case for change. Our views on smoking certainly have. Americans’ growing support of strong government action to deter smoking has coincided with anti-tobacco campaigns using “a variety of educational, clinical, regulatory, economic, and counter-advertising strategies,”, forthright acknowledgement by the medical community about the dangers of smoking, and numerous lawsuits against the tobacco industry. Still, as recently as 2001, just 4 in 10 people wanted to ban smoking in public places. Now, nearly 6 in 10 Americans support this approach.

Smoking used to be glamorous. Now, smokers have to huddle outside in the cold and rain just to have a cigarette. Will sugary soft drinks and empty calorie snacks suffer a similar fall from grace? Only time will tell.

Beyond the Polls is a joint endeavor of Public Agenda, the National Issues Forums, and the Kettering Foundation. Sign up to receive an email update when we have a new Beyond the Polls post.

To take on the empowerment gap we need to change the narrative of education
Harry C. Boyte

You know the drill. In the United States, political campaigns of every stripe put forward a plan, devised by experts, for what to do about poverty. Debates about these plans seem to be increasing in intensity as the elections of 2014 and 2016 approach.

After all these years and all those plans, the number of Americans at or near poverty is higher than in 1964, according to Paul Thiessen, writing in the Washington Post.

In 2011, forty three million Americans, 14 percent of the population, lived below the poverty level of $11,500. For Native Americans, the poverty figures were 27 percent, for African Americans, 26 percent, and for Latinos/Hispanics, 23 percent. And behind these grim figures are too many lives haunted by misery and powerlessness.

As Gary Cunningham and his co-authors observe in "The Urgency of Now" in Foundation Review, there are close links between poverty and race. A recent Gallup survey found that 76 percent of Americans worry a great deal or a fair amount about those who do not have enough to eat or a place to sleep - more than worry about the size of the federal government, the possibility of a terrorist attack, or illegal immigration.

But the problem is misdiagnosed. The issue is not, as conventional wisdom would have it, the achievement gap. The achievement gap assumes the point is upward mobility -- how to give poor people, especially racial minorities, resources and remediation so that they can make it in a hypercompetitive, individualist, meritocratic educational system and society.

Poor people who resist this system experience an "empowerment gap" -- education is done to them. It's not something they do. They are labeled as failures.

What if the problem is the hyper-competitive, individualist education system itself, now largely a screening mechanism for personal advancement?

In Unequal Childhoods, anthropologist Annett Lareau explores "the cultural logic" of poor and working class families compared to K-12 schools and educators. Educators, whether in suburbs or inner cities, are trained in what Lareau calls a "dominant set of cultural repertoires about how children should be raised," including highly individualist, competitive and achievement-oriented norms. In contrast, for working-class and poor families, there is an emphasis on sustaining relationships with family and friends.

Similarly , recent research by Nicole Stephens and others sponsored by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, "Unseen Disadvantage," shows that individualist achievement norms generate inequality through effects on undergraduates. "Doing your own thing," "paving your own path," and "realizing your individual potential" are familiar to middle and upper class students. But such norms are experienced far differently by students from poor and working class families, whose "expectations for college center around interdependent motives such as working together, connecting to others, and giving back," Stephens reports.

As first-generation college, poor and working class students are exposed to the message of individual success and independence, a strong social class performance gap emerges. They feel forced to make a choice between who they are, their cultural identities, support networks and the communities they come from, and the demands of individual achievement and success

This story-line has been long in the making. "Forget your past, your customs, and your ideals. Run, work, do, and keep your own good in mind," counselled an advice manual to immigrants coming into the country in the late 19th century, quoted by Herbert Gutman in Work, Culture and Society in Industrializing America.

It has been getting worse. The College Board, sponsor of the SAT tests, has launched an initiative to make sure gifted children go to Ivy League schools. The media fixates on "ranking wars," in which colleges ratings depend on the number of students they exclude. Colleges compete for "the best students." The message is "up and out." Success means leaving behind your poor, immigrant, or cultural community.

But there are deep resources for raising questions about today's dominant story. A different narrative found expression in land grant colleges, religious schools, community colleges, historically black colleges and universities and tribal colleges. The City College of New York, once seen as the nation's intellectual powerhouse, admitted all students from New York high schools -- and graduated 11 future Nobel Prize winners. The different narrative also found expression in community settings, from Chautauqua movements, religious education, and settlement houses to the citizenship schools of the civil rights movement.

This alternative narrative is the democratic genius of American education, based on "cooperative excellence," not "meritocratic excellence." Cooperative excellence is the principle that a mix of people from highly varied backgrounds can achieve remarkable intellectual, social, political, and spiritual growth if they have the right encouragements, resources, challenges, and calls to public purpose.

Today, there is growing evidence that middle and upper middle students and many others are looking for a different narrative.

The National Issues Forums and the American Commonwealth Partnership, launched at the White House in January, 2012, to revitalize the public narrative of higher education on the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act creating land grants, organized a dialogue, "Shaping Our Future," on the purposes of higher education in more than 100 communities. We found that most people have far richer views of education than do most policy makers and administrators.

Soundings of public opinion for a follow-up dialogue to be launched next January, "Higher Education and the Changing World of Work," also surface wide discontent with an overly narrow focus on "education for jobs" and making a lot of money as the highest goals of education.

In-depth research by David Hoffman of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, based on conversations with students who have been change agents, also shows that middle class students are highly skeptical about individualist achievement norms and conventional definitions of success. Students describe "an everyday world that often seems fundamentally synthetic, structured around falsehoods, hidden agendas, or scripts."

We may be ready to take on the empowerment gap. To do so we need to change the narrative of education in America.

Harry Boyte, director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College, coordinated the American Commonwealth Partnership. This blog is adapted from The Empowerment Gap, a study for Northwest Area Foundation.

As first-generation college, poor and working class students are exposed to the message of individual success and independence, a strong social class performance gap emerges.

As first-generation college, poor and working class students are exposed to the message of individual success and independence, a strong social class performance gap emerges.

(Dallas) I’m getting ready to present at the League of Women Voters’ annual meeting, which offers all the traditional trappings of a reform conference in the US: proud banners for each state’s delegation, canvassers standing at the door with flyers, tote bags with the League’s logo.

In my book We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, I claim that one million Americans organize civic life in the United States today, not only expressing themselves but also giving others voice and translating people’s talk into action.

I count the League’s members in the one million. They have a certain demographic tilt. Most–but not all–are women, and most are white, highly educated, and older than the median American. But the nascent movement for civic renewal in America can also draw other demographic groups. If we can put organizations like the League together with networks like, for example, PICO, we can build a representative movement for democracy.

Here is my presentation for the plenary (without narration, and I’m not sure how much sense it makes alone.)

The post at the League of Women Voters appeared first on Peter Levine.