Author Archives: Peter

why some forms of advantage are more stubborn than others

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Let’s make these assumptions:

  1. All the slots in a desirable institution are held by white men, most of whom are wealthy, and none of whom are out as gay. That would (for instance) be a rough description of the student bodies of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton ca. 1960.
  2. Wealthy, straight, white men also tend to hold biased views of the other groups.
  3. Most people want their children to have at least the same advantages (in both absolute and relative terms) that they’ve had.
  4. People with social, cultural, or financial capital are quite good at obtaining advantages for their own kids. Just for instance, after the collapse of the Roman Empire and the demise of paganism, France was run by Frankish bishops instead of the Roman landlords who had dominated Gaul. But it turns out the bishops were descended from the landlords, because the Gallo-Roman elite figured out how to weather even the profound disruptions of AD 300-600 and put their own sons on top of the new order.

Now let’s envision that the biased views mentioned in #2 (above) go away. Wealthy, straight, white men develop genuinely respectful, appreciative, egalitarian views toward all others. Meanwhile, the other groups come to believe that they have equal potential and rights, rather than internalizing bias against themselves. What happens?

Most women and most gay men are children of straight men. Therefore, if advantaged moms and dads simply form the opinion that their own daughters and gay children have fully equal potential and worth, then they will demand spaces for those kids at the top of the social scale. Social outcomes should change quickly as a result of attitudinal changes. The only obstacles are: (1) persistent bias, which may become implicit and subtle, (2) leftover policies and structures that discriminate, such as policies regarding parental leave, and (3) the reluctance of incumbents to yield their own places. To the last point: you wouldn’t expect tenured Ivy League professors or US Senators to resign to make room for women, but you would expect the gender ratio to improve with generational turnover, as long as attitudes truly change.

In contrast, most people have the same race/ethnicity as their parents. Therefore, even if all the white parents who dominate the preferred slots in a society come to believe that people of color are fully equal and entirely welcome, if they also succeed in obtaining slots for their own kids, then racial demographics will shift slowly, if at all. Attitudinal change will have little impact on outcomes. Absent major pressure from outside the system, all you’ll see is slow, incremental change as each family of color that makes it to the top holds a spot for its own kids.

As for class advantage, it presumably consists of having a better-than-average chance of attaining a desirable social role for yourself or your kids. In the list above, I assume that a society provides highly some desirable social slots (such as places in the student body of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton), and that parents confer advantage in obtaining those slots. For instance, US parents who have attended college have an 82% chance of sending their own kids to college, versus a 36% chance for parents who didn’t complete high school.

But both of those circumstances are variables, not constants. A society can offer a steeper or gentler gradient of social advantage, and the correlation between parents’ and children’s advantage can be larger or smaller. In Continental Europe and Canada, colleges do not differ nearly as much in reputation and resources as they do in the US and Britain, which means that it matters less where you enroll. However, it is worth noting that even in Sweden, with a century of social democracy behind it, today’s upper class is substantially descended from the 17th century aristocracy. But Swedish women now earn 95% as much as Swedish men and fill 43% of the seats in the legislature. In Sweden, new attitudes toward gender (and sexual orientation) led to deep changes in individual choices and social policies. But new attitudes toward class didn’t dislodge Sweden’s most advantaged families.

the Danish Parliament’s paternoster

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Earlier this month, my family and I took the free and excellent tour of the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen. There were many serious insights to be gleaned about parliamentary government, unicameral legislatures, multiple-party systems, and the cultural norms that prevail in Scandinavia, such as egalitarian informality.

But I write not to share insights; I write to relate an anecdote. Although the embedded sideways video is not mine, it shows part of the same tour that we took. The machine in the background is a “paternoster”–like an elevator except that the doors remain always open and a sequence of boxes passes by continuously. You have to jump on and off. Characteristically for Denmark, this contraption is considered too dangerous for tourists and reporters, but MPs and their staff can ride it. As the guide notes, this makes it a good refuge from journalists (who otherwise are allowed everywhere in the parliament building, at will).

The guide–or one of his colleagues–once explained to some Danish 7th-graders that the paternoster goes up, over, and down. That means that if you ride it up on the left, soon you will be coming back down on the right, still standing comfortably upright. The oldest Member of Parliament at the time, who was also a minister in the government, heard this explanation as he rode up. A few seconds later, down he came on the left–standing on his head.

It is fairly hard to imagine this happening in the US Capitol.

 

public support for civics

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PDKThe annual Phi Delta Kappa survey of public attitudes toward education is out.

Adults are asked whether preparing students to be good citizens is important and how well schools are doing it. Eighty-two percent say it’s extremely or very important, and 33% say schools are doing it extremely or very well. As a priority, it ranks somewhat below developing work habits and providing factual information, it ties with critical thinking, and it comes ahead of working in groups.

In a different question, respondents are asked to pick the single main goal of education. About a quarter choose preparing students to be good citizens, which is on par with preparing students for work but behind preparing students academically.

The advantage of a forced choice is that most people will favor a whole set of good outcomes if allowed to pick them all. However, there’s something a little artificial about the results of a forced choice. My job is to study and advocate for civic education, so I’d pick the “citizenship” choice. I nevertheless believe that preparing students academically and for work are essential goals, and are complementary with civics. So it’s not the case that 26% of Americans think only citizenship matters, or that 74% think it doesn’t matter at all.

Still, the forced-choice reveals that education for citizenship is the top priority for quite a few Americans. That’s valuable to know, because the major reforms that have passed through education like earthquakes’ seismic waves since 1980 have hardly mentioned civics at all. The PDK survey doesn’t prove that Americans put the civic mission of schools above all else, but it does suggest a lot of support, which ought to be reflected in policies.

Further, the forced choice reveals differences within the public. It appears that the civic mission is most important to young and older citizens; parents and other adults in the traditional child-rearing years are more concerned about academics.

There’s also a partisan and ideological split: “Fifty percent of conservatives emphasize academics vs. 43% of moderates and 40% of liberals. Liberals instead are more likely (33%) than moderates (24%) and conservatives (22%) to say schools should focus on building citizenship. Republicans are less apt than others to value a role for citizenship instruction in public schools.” The partisan divide creates challenges for proponents of civic education. In my opinion, citizenship should be a core value for conservatives, and it’s important to make that case.

The PDK poll doesn’t ask people what they mean by “good citizens.” We know from other studies that answers would vary. Some think of good behavior–obedience in the kindergarten classroom or staying out of trouble as a teenager. Others think of patriotism and support for the regime; still others, of activism and debate. Note that support for citizenship education is strongest among liberals and young people, and I doubt that most of them favor simple obedience.

One thing we can conclude is that good citizenship shouldn’t be an afterthought for policymakers, for 82% of adults think it’s at least very important, and 26% think it’s the main goal of schools.

a reason for hope: the Citizens Initiative Review

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(Posted from DC) The Massachusetts 2016 Citizens Initiative Review just concluded. Twenty randomly selected citizens spent four full days hearing testimony and intensively deliberating to write a statement meant to inform Massachusetts voters about the pending marijuana legalization referendum. Tufts’ Tisch College is a sponsor of this process, and I made a few visits during the days of deliberation, which are open to the public. I can report that my fellow citizens were deeply responsible, thoughtful, serious, and civil. At the end, I understand they found themselves moved by what they had accomplished.

Their task was to write a statement to guide voters. Their short document had to include the strongest reasons to vote for and against the initiative. Their fine product is here.

In contrast to politics as usual, the CIR isn’t polarized, and it’s not about winning and losing. In a good sense, it’s personal: participants get to know each other and try to make something valuable together. It is demographically reflective of the whole state. Money can’t get you into the room or buy your ideas a better hearing. It’s open-ended: no one can predict or determine what the deliberators will write, and each voter who reads their statement will make up her own mind about the referendum.

To observe 20 of your fellow citizens–of all ages, races, and walks of life–playing a role in making policy is a beautiful thing and an antidote to despair.

the signal in this election versus the noise

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Here is a graph of the presidential polls from this election so far. Most people choose narrow ranges for the y-axis in graphs like this, to draw attention to the shifts. I show the full 0%-100% range, to display how the whole American public has split. I also choose the stronger option for “smoothing,” so that each day’s measure is an average of several days on either side. The result is a highly stable advantage for Hillary Clinton all the way along.

It doesn’t really seem to have made that much difference what Trump has said, or what has been reported about Clinton’s emails and her Foundation, or how she has spent her $319 million in TV ads. It looks as if most people had their minds made up as soon as it was clear who the nominees would be.

The trend looked similar in 2012, except that it was always much closer that year.

I’d say that partisan identification outweighs almost everything, except that Trump is underperforming, for a GOP nominee, by a few points.

the Nordic model

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We are just back from a vacation in parts of Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden. Although I’ve been in the region before, I am very far from expert on Nordic politics and economics. But it’s worth understanding the Nordic model–even if it looks a little rickety today and may depend on factors that couldn’t transfer to the US–because basic measures of human well-being are extraordinarily high in the five Scandinavian nations. For instance, Norway has the highest human development level in the world. I think the Nordic model represents a fusion of two contrasting impulses, a combination that is perhaps obscured in talk about social democracy or democratic socialism.

The (conservative) Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom makes the point. From Heritage’s perspective, Denmark is an odd mix, although its overall rank is high. Heritage considers Denmark very bad at “limited government,” because one aspect of the Nordic model is high taxation and spending. On the other hand, Heritage ranks Denmark very high on measures like business freedom, investment freedom, and property rights (as well as freedom from corruption, which everyone values).

I think the Nordic model boils down to competitive entrepreneurship in the global marketplace plus strongly egalitarian social policies for everyone in the home country. Scandinavians are out and about, learning foreign languages (95% of Swedes speak English), and studying and working overseas. Goods as well as human beings flow across their borders. Denmark’s international trade is 102% of GDP. I’m not certain how that number can be greater than 100%, but the ratio is obviously much higher there than in the US, where trade is 27% of GDP. You see imports everywhere in Scandinavian stores, as well as export-oriented businesses.

Competitiveness brings material benefits: high-quality goods and services selected from around the world. It provides opportunities for ambitious and talented people to create new things. An index of innovation ranks Sweden first in the world, and Finland and Denmark are also in the top 10. Competition also identifies and rewards excellence. The result is a lively, flexible, future-oriented society. Scandinavians are proud of their nations’ marquee industries and are notably patriotic without being bellicose.

At the same time, competitiveness hurts people–the people who cannot or don’t happen to win, who were doing fine before all the market “disruptions,” who value traditions, or who don’t even want to fight for success in market economies. Competition can also erode civic virtues and responsibilities, including concern for public institutions and shared resources.

That’s why the other side of the Nordic model is so important. At home, everyone has very extensive and unconditional economic rights, which cost a lot of money. The public sector budget is 55% of GDP in Denmark. The state also demands people’s time and attention. Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Denmark all rank in the top seven for voter turnout, they have among the highest rates of associational membership in the world, and their governments are rated as the least corrupt.

All of this is hard to build and maintain, and I have not mentioned the drawbacks and frailties of the model. My point is really an ideological one. There are genuine virtues to systems that we might call “neoliberal,” systems that involve property rights, competition, and globalization. Strongly democratic societies that protect everyone’s welfare also have virtues. And although these goals can trade off in some respects, it’s possible to pick elements from the neoliberal menu and others from the socialist menu without contradiction.

the different logics of class and race

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It’s common to list racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia together. These are all important and bad phenomena, but they have different logics, and I’m not sure it’s helpful to put them in a single category. Here I explore the differences by focusing on racism and classism.

Older meanings of racism were, I think, always attitudinal. To be a racist was to have negative attitudes toward a racial group, even if those attitudes were unconscious. We now speak of structural racism, which can exist even in the absence of racist attitudes. I sort of wish that we just called that problem “racial injustice,” because the “-ism” suffix connotes an attitude or mindset. But I can accept the linguistic evolution, and I certainly believe that both interpersonal racism and structural racial injustice persist and are destructive.

Classism can be made analogous to the older meaning of racism. You’re a classist if you hold someone in lower regard because of the status of her job, her working-class accent, her neighborhood of birth, or her parents’ social role. Classism of that kind is evident and harmful.

Structural classism would then mean some kind of advantage enjoyed by people due to their class. But this is where the analogy breaks down. Classes are differences in status, power, and advantage. If a society has classes at all, then it gives people different advantages. Put a different way: if a society differentiates among social roles, then it has classes, and that’s structural classism.

Racism is never justifiable, and it’s possible to envision a society that has racial diversity yet no racism. Indeed, I hope that’s where we are headed. In contrast, it’s impossible to imagine a society with classes that doesn’t have “structural classism,” if that means different levels of status, power, or money for different social roles. In theory, we could pay everyone the same salaries, but I’m not sure that would work in practice, and even if it did, it wouldn’t eliminate differences in the quality of work or the status of professions.

Further, classes may be justifiable or even good. Some argue that a classless society is the ideal. We haven’t seen one, however: communist societies produced powerful, detached social strata–the nomenklatura, etc. John Rawls argued that it’s right to pay heart surgeons more than carpenters if (and only if) that is necessary to serve the interests of cardiac patients–who would want highly skilled doctors. Rawls was not perfectly egalitarian, but he was more egalitarian than many Americans, who would make principled and sincere arguments in favor of different pay and status for jobs of different difficulty and complexity.

To say that structural racism exists is to make a critique. To say that classes exist raises the question of whether they are good or bad, and that is worthy of discussion.

One can see the analogy break down in educational settings. A university, for example, ought to be free of both interpersonal and structural racism. It should strive to be a place where your race doesn’t affect how well anyone else treats you or how you flourish. A university cannot, however, be free of class if it exists to provide the education that people need to enter certain desirable professions. If a university prepares people to be teachers, doctors, accountants, and poets, then it is producing a certain class. They could theoretically be paid the same as domestic workers and laborers; they would nevertheless form an advantaged group. A university can strive to reduce interpersonal classism, in the form of prejudice against first-generation students and its own blue-collar employees. But as long as it has blue-collar employees at all, it has classes; and as long as it promises good jobs for its graduates, it generates the class structure. Again, this may be necessary, justifiable, or even good–but it’s no use pretending that an advanced educational institution could be class-free.

Ending racism is theoretically possible and compatible with everyone’s legitimate best interests. You have no right to any advantage conferred by your race, and the very existence of such differences is caustic for all. In contrast, ending class differences might be just, if it’s possible, but it is not compatible with everyone’s interests. We like to talk about “social mobility,” because then we can focus on happy upward trajectories from poor to rich. But for everyone who moves up, someone else must go down. For instance, if the children of domestic workers have a decent chance of growing up to be doctors, then the children of doctors must have a good chance of cleaning houses for a living. Again, we could reduce the disparities in after-tax income and political power, but there will still be winners and losers as long as some people diagnose patients while others clean homes for a living.

Finally, the causation seems to be different. Presumably, interpersonal racism was an original cause (although maybe not the only original cause) of structural racism. We wouldn’t have had slavery, Jim Crow, or redlining if most white people had held most black people in high regard. But today the causal link may be weakened, for structural racism can persist even in the absence of interpersonal racism. For instance, assume that white college grads come to feel benignly and respectfully toward all other races. Still, if each college grad succeeds in getting his own children into a desirable college, those colleges will enroll mostly white students. As long as the distribution of goods in a society is racially unjust, you don’t need interpersonal racism to replicate the inequality; you just need unequal resources plus self-interest.

Meanwhile, interpersonal classism is mainly a consequence of objective differences in income, status, and power. It’s not that middle-class people are prejudiced against working-class people and give them bad jobs. It’s rather that people with bad jobs get treated worse. That pattern can turn into class prejudice, as when a person who has a working-class accent but plenty of money gets treated rudely at a snooty restaurant. But classism of that sort is not the main problem. The main problem is the real distribution of status, wealth, and power in the society. To change that is not a matter of improving attitudes but of redesigning institutions.

CIRCLE analysis of Clinton and the youth vote

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From today’s CIRCLE release:

Young voters overwhelmingly favored Sanders in Democratic primary, but the general electorate offers more potential upside to Clinton than Trump; young women, black youth more likely to support Clinton

The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) – the preeminent, non-partisan research center on youth engagement at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life – today released an analysis of young people’s support and views of Secretary Clinton during this primary election cycle, exploring trends and implications for the general election.

How did Hillary Clinton perform among young people who voted in the primaries? And how did her youth support compare to that of previous Democratic nominees?

  • Secretary Clinton won 20 of the 27 state primaries for which exit poll data are available, but won the youth vote (ages 17-29) in just two of those states—Alabama and Mississippi.  
  • In these 27 states, she averaged only 28% of young voters, lagging far behind recent Democratic presidential nominees.
  • Secretary Clinton performed relatively better with young African Americans and she did better with slightly older youth (ages 25-29).
  • Data from Super Tuesday primaries indicate that young women were more likely to support Secretary Clinton than young men; but young women still supported her at lower levels than did older women.

How do young people overall view Hillary Clinton? And which groups of young people are most likely to vote for her?

  • At least half of young people have negative views of Secretary Clinton, and similar numbers do not find her honest and trustworthy.
  • However, more youth report that they intend to vote for Secretary Clinton than for Donald Trump, who has even lower favorability numbers.
  • Secretary Clinton may enjoy higher support from constituencies who have been especially supportive of other recent Democratic presidential nominees, such as young single women, young Black women, and young Latinas.

Is the general youth electorate more or less favorable to Hillary Clinton than the Democratic primary electorate?

  • The youth electorate in recent general elections has been more diverse than this year’s Democratic primary, which may benefit Secretary Clinton given her relative strength over Mr. Trump with young women and youth of color.
  • Together, young people of color and young women comprise roughly 70% of youth eligible to vote, and young women have historically turned out at higher rates than young men.
  • Voter outreach, always important, is especially critical with youth; our research has shown that young people who are contacted about voting are more likely to cast a ballot on Election Day. 

 

 

white working class alienation from government

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In aPRRI-2012-White-Working-Class_connection-to-govt-by-social-class recent long post, I argued that one reason white working class Americans are alienated from government is that they lack the productive political power that comes from organizations, such as political parties that rely on ordinary members, and unions. Moreover, because of the weakness of such organizations, white working class people are simply not visible in positions of power. A few leaders can rightly say that they started life in the working class, but almost by definition, they are now all well-paid and highly educated professionals.

As a supportive data point, here is a graph from a 2012 PRRI survey. Respondents are asked: “When you think and talk about government, do you tend to think of it more as ‘the government’ or more as ‘our government?'” The adult population is fairly evenly split, with almost half of Americans opting for “our government.” More than half of white college-educated people see things that way. But six-in-ten working class whites perceive it as “the government.” Among seniors who are working-class whites, a majority still see it as “their” government. That could be because they are invested in certain government policies (such as Social Security and Medicare), but it’s also true that they came of age at a time when working-class people exercised political power. Among young working-class whites, 70% see it as “the government.”

I don’t think they’re wrong. It is “the” government rather than “their” government in a meaningful sense. But as long as they feel this way, and no one offers actual empowerment, they are going to be ripe targets for demagogues who want to blow the whole thing up.