A couple of years ago–even before the new “Dark Ages” we are experiencing under the Trump Administration–I posted about a question that has obsessed me much of my adult life: what is the common good? What would a truly good society look like, and why does it matter?
I came across that post a couple of days ago, and decided that–if anything–those questions have become even more pertinent today.
As I wrote then, maybe it’s advancing age, or–even more likely– my growing concern that I may be watching human civilization disintegrate around me, but I increasingly find myself mulling over what i call the “fundamental questions.” How should humans live together? What sorts of institutional and governmental arrangements are fairest? What sort of society is most likely to facilitate human flourishing? What sort of economic system might ensure the subsistence of all members of a society without depressing innovation and productivity?
These aren’t new questions. But for those of us with grandchildren who will have to navigate this increasingly chaotic and angry world, they are critical.
Aristotle described the good society as one that encouraged and facilitated human flourishing. It’s been awhile, so I no longer recall how–or whether–he defined “flourishing,” but I can’t imagine people flourishing (however defined) under a system that ignored the requisites of what we call the common good.
I favor John Rawls’ approach to questions of the common good. Rawls–the pre-eminent political philosopher of the 20th Century–begins by insisting upon a “veil of ignorance.” The veil of ignorance is a scenario in which individuals are placed behind a metaphorical veil that strips them of knowledge about who they will be and where they will live; they cannot know whether they’ll be rich or poor, talented or not, brilliant or mentally disabled, healthy or sickly, etc. From behind that veil of ignorance, the individual must design a society that they would consider to be a just one no matter where they landed and no matter what their personal attributes.
The goal of the veil device, rather obviously, is to encourage respondents to think deeply about the structure of society, and to ignore to the extent possible the influence of his/her actual attributes and situation.
If Rawls is a bit too theoretical for you, several years ago my friend Morton Marcus penned a more accessible but no less important set of questions. Morton distilled the study of economics and economic systems into the question “Who Gets What?” In that essay, he pointed out that social and material goods are allocated in a more complicated fashion than most of us recognize. Depending upon the good being accessed, it might be allocated on a “first come, first served basis” or via the force/authority exerted by one’s government or family. The allocation might or might not be tied to merit–or at least, what society at a given time regards as merit.
Morton’s exposition was lengthy, but its major contribution consists of the reminder that “who gets what?” is a question that permeates our social and legal relationships and involves multiple decisions by government and the private sector.
Humans have a habit of thinking that the culture into which they’ve been socialized is “natural”–it’s “the way things are.” When “the way things are” is challenged– by technology, displacement, social change, whatever–most people will dig in, defending our world-views and beliefs about the way things should be. Typically, we believe they should be the way we think they’ve always been–the familiar cultural touchstones to which we’ve become accustomed and with which we’re comfortable.
What if we used these scary, unsettled times to consider what human flourishing entails, and to think about the kinds of systematic and social supports that would encourage individual flourishing?
What if we responded to the uncertainty and chaos in Washington, D.C. and around the globe by purposefully retreating behind Rawls’ veil of ignorance, and trying to envision the outlines of a better, more just society?
What if we didn’t respond to uncertainty and fear by clinging more tightly to what we know, to our fears and prejudices and ideas about what constitutes merit, and instead pictured different ways of allocating goods, of answering the question “Who gets what?”
What if?
Great column!
Someone once said that whatever you declare war on, you strengthen. So one thing the ideal society would have is a mechanism for avoiding all kinds of wars before they begin. For example, if you want to avoid religious wars, you would have religious freedom for all. Oh,yeah. We supposedly have that. It is what Christian Nationalists want to destroy.
The ideal society would have equality under the law for every individual. That would certainly head off a lot of conflicts that could lead to wars and it is a big part of the American Idea. Also something the Christian Nationalists and fascists and our wanna be dictator are trying to destroy.
Lets see. To prevent class war the ideal society would set up a system that prevented any class from exploiting another. An independent judiciary operating within a body of laws approved by some kind of representative government in which all classes could share power might work.
Seems to me we just need to reform and update the system under which we have been operating for almost 250 years.
“…-even before the new “Dark Ages” we are experiencing under the Trump Administration–…”
What if Debbie Wasserman Schultz had NOT poked that first hole in the dike by not releasing voter registration lists to Bernie Sanders and openly supported Hillary Clinton? That question came to me yesterday watching vibrant and still strong Bernie Sanders go at RFK, Jr. in that hearing. She soon left her DNC Chair position to take a position on Hillary’s campaign and is still active in the DNC…what if people remembered her undemocratic (as in democracy) actions before voting her into any public office again? I doubt we would be questioning “what if?” or dealing with today’s “Dark Ages”.
Trump now wants to rename the Defense Department; I would like to know exactly who is going to provide our defense from Trump?
“What if we used these scary, unsettled times to consider what human flourishing entails, and to think about the kinds of systematic and social supports that would encourage individual flourishing?”
I considered myself flourishing by being able to keep my bills paid with the Social Security income I earned and paid into for 25 years. That is what I earned and what I deserve; no family money to be handed down and not looking for handouts. The majority of working Americans earn “individual flourishing” at different levels of the economy. What will Trump’s Job Report look like to reflect working people and the condition of the economy now being run by billionaires?
“What If?” Trump listens to the results of the hearing yesterday when both parties took on RFK, Jr. and didn’t pull any of their punches? This nation has had the wall-to-wall carpet pulled out from under us in a matter of SEVEN MONTHS; what if we can’t survive these “Dark Ages”?
Any day I wake up and see Morton Marcus name is a good day.
Many of our Founders, such as Franklin, were uncomfortable with the system they established for us, yet they believed it was the best possible solution. Once again, how many of them were oligarchs or slaveowners?
I read pieces of the despot and his idiot educational czar, and they want to completely change education to prepare a youth to be work-ready upon graduation. In other words, the local and regional Chamber of Commerce will use schools to prepare “students” for anticipated job openings. What could go wrong?
Einstein already suggested a social model – socialism with central planning for all of society. It was democratic socialism, which is the model used by Scandinavian countries. As I’ve pointed out before, in just about every measure, they lead the world, and most specifically, in education and Happiness.
Most Americans behind their veil of ignorance immediately snap at the word “socialism” because they’ve been trained that “it never works.” This overlooks the fact that it is working and producing superior results in Scandinavia. They confuse communism with socialism. They also believe that the Nazis were a left-wing group since their party was called the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Can you imagine believing Hitler was infected with the woke virus? LOL
I write articles all the time about scaling up your business. Consultants can do an excellent job of growing companies. Why can’t we scale up the Scandinavian countries’ government model so it can be used across the world?
At some point, we’ll need global governance from a central planning perspective because our world is shrinking and getting smaller every moment with advancing technology. However, the oligarchs want to rule because they are afraid of the people. Always have been. Do you think the Tech Bros wish to use AI to create wealth for the people, or themselves, and why is the priority of Silicon Valley surveillance?
Greedy people fear they will lose their riches, and to be happy, they need even more. Why do you think our Founders were scared of democracy (the people)?
p.s. In 2025, our “national defense” should not have a budget of over $1 trillion. If you give that much money to the military, which sees everything through a war lens, guess what kind of results you’ll get?
More and more these days I think of Gus Portokolus, the stubborn and persistent father portrayed in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Gus was relentless in advocating for Windex as the cure for everything. In my thoughts Civics and Ethics education are the Windexes for the US. I think the US will continue to loose its moorings without an educated citizenry in foundational principles and ideas, i.e., curriculum design that requires these two formational aspects. Thanks for resurfacing your previous thoughts today, Sheila.
Fair and just are not what the oligarchs, Christian nationalists and Trumpists want, obviously.
“What if” we can take back congress and proclaim education as a higher goal, even while funding it, bigly? “What if” we could put energy into the idea that “All thriving is mutual?”
To paraphrase Sheila, we need a civically educated, and aware, WOKE, citizenry.
“What if” the MAGA agenda turns out to show the country how it is not the road to economic, our social, thriving?
Sure, I’m old and I’m dreaming!
It never occurred to me until now that the Stones, Crips and Blood’s of Chicago will become the new heroes to keep Trump’s Imperial Guard at check. Until then, everyday little acts of kindness to scale builds and defines the ‘greater good’ despite headlines to the contrary.
Back in the day, when Obama was President, I thought that we came as close to my simple measure of a successful society as we had ever been. Safe and comfortable. So, I guess I believe in strong and well-informed leadership, restrained by our Constitution and its protection of human rights.
Our laws, though, made that society temporary. Temporary is a limitation that defines all of life. We each are born, we develop, we do, we slide through irrelevance, and we each die.
Because of my interest in technology, I propose that the only government that will work in our complex future would combine our Constitution with an all-informed, long-term visionary based on AI. A device whose knowledge is maintained up to the full measure of human knowledge, of which each human knows only a pitifully small, obsoleted every day, measure.
The human contribution would involve performing the pick-and-shovel work at the frontiers of human knowledge by continuously expanding it and publishing those expansions on the Internet, where they would be put into immediate use by the AI device as new learning.
With the guidance of such a government, some of the earliest expected actions would be to revise the accounting rules for corporations to form coalitions of all the expertise necessary to create products that take into account the existence and sustainability of all life, including new species, as life continued to evolve.
We must contend with the vast amount of knowledge that all humans possess compared to the individual knowledge of each person, and the temporality of each individual in relation to the ongoing need for and level of safety and comfort that sustain all life through the passage of time.
In such a society, new input to the laws could be based on input from each person as often as they identified safety or comfort shortcomings, and as long as the support for changes came from a broad base.
Liberal democracy on the steroids of AI.
Seems US constitution and bill of rights is a good framework for ensuring no big brother intrusion from government. We’re seeing disregard and overreach from trump regime in many areas that effect American lives. Giving corporations and big business license to influence lawmakers to pave the way for greater riches at the expense of the working/middle classes. Tax cuts for wealthy and increase in taxes i.e. illegal tariffs, for working families. We need pushback for these injustices.
Today we have ICE offering 100K sign on bonus to immigration lawyers to work for ICE along with 50K and student debt paid for agents. That’s Maga agenda policy that’s not in line with US laws and freedoms and needs to be stopped.
The trump regime is like a volatile mob boss with a lot of dark money working to take over the US banking system and economy. If we let Maga succeed they definitely will continue to usher in non-flourishing and worse conditions for the majority.
Indeed.
I too was taken with Rawls when my college ethics class devoted a good portion of the syllabus to studying his Theory of Justice, which was fairly new at that time. I think it is a good starting point.
I also like to think about what I call the Marginal Utility of the Dollar (I am certain that there is some technical name for this among economists, but I only had one class in college, so that isn’t my area).
Basically, take an annual salary of $15K, $50K, $1 million, or whatever and triple it. Now what effect does is have. One quickly realizes that it could lift some out of poverty while others just get to buy a fourth private jet.
I do think that our current amended Constitution has a lot right about it, but it clearly isn’t the best. Also, while I respect Pete’s opinion, I fear that AI is too dependent upon the input data used to train it. Whatever “knowledge” is fed into it as a base will effect its “intelligence”. I have long thought that the “natural” ethics espoused by modern atheists stems from growing up in a culture that emphasized “love thy neighbor” – their conclusions don’t depend upon theology, but I wonder about their roots. I know that I cannot separate my views as an agnostic Jew from the fact that I was raised on Jewish ethics.
I was raised intensely Christian. My faith has changed drastically, but the baseline belief that we should love our neighbor is still the bedrock of my psyche.
I have been relatively poor, and I have been relatively rich. But either way,
I want to share what I have. It’s stone soup, you know?
Think of a family. Imagine a dozen people in a room. They fight over every dollar and every scrap of food. The strong ones get more. The weaker not only get less, they are resentful, angry. Fights break out.
Next door is a family that sees things differently. They are aware of the needs of each family member. The stronger ones take care of the weaker ones. They decide together how to allocate what they have. (Family meeting-everybody gets their say-they agree by consensus-seldom by voting.) There are tears, but mostly there are hugs and laughter, and celebrations. Even with so little to share.
Yes, that’s a little story. But it’s also real. Read about people’s home lives in the Depression. Which family do you want to live in? You have a choice.
The term “Commonwealth” has always fascinated me. Our wealth is in common. Nobody starves. Everyone deserves healthcare. Not a heavy handed socialism, but a kind democracy. I guess our democracy has never been completely fair. But I thought there were were enough people who want to be fair to continually push government to keep working toward better. When did the balance change?
I can see “I want more”, but this nasty “I want more and I want yours, too” scares me. The current government and MAGA supporters seem intent on making things bad for everybody else.
I really don’t mind that religion is waining. But where will we learn morality? Love your neighbor. Share, like the feeding of the five thousand. Forgive. It stops things from deteriorating into violence.
I don’t get Christian Nationalists. Where is the Christian part?