Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Effects of welfare New York, N.Y. To the Editors: I have never seen any reliable evidence of a "corrosive effect of the social-democratic welfare state, whose very benefits, when...
...I can't think of a single neoconservative who accepts the Fukuyama thesis...
...In Pittsburgh, politicians, neighborhood activists, and people from business and the academy have come together not once but three times since World War II to rebuild the city's economy through communitarian means...
...Even George Gilder and his right-wing ilk wouldn't go that far...
...Positive freedom for self-development does not yield what Novak applauds-the supposedly "disciplined" welfare state of Reagan or Thatcher-but rather an expanded, indeed universal social support system whose benefits are delivered not as at present, but rather via local institutions emphasizing democratic social interaction...
...One need only look at the warfare between generations resulting from the Social Security mess to see that the welfare state as now administered creates what Alan Wolfe has called a "moral hole...
...As for Mr...
...I don't know much about Taylor, Pennsylvania, but I have been in places in southern Arkansas which seem like outposts of the third world-colonial towns ruled by absentee timber or oil barons...
...During the past ten years, nearly all social democratic regimes have cut tax rates, denationalized industries, stressed privatization, emphasized innovation and enterprise, and begun to discipline their welfare programs because of cost and unexpected outcomes...
...its cousin, People Against Violence (Verejnost Proti (Continued on page 268) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 234) Nasiliu), is the equivalent Slovak organization, headquartered in Bratislava...
...and upon local institutions, including local public-private partnerships, have been staples of neocon-servative thought for many years: in Peter Berger and Richard John Neuhaus, Irving Kristol, Robert Nisbet, and Charles Murray ("the little platoons" of In Pursuit of Happiness...
...At the same time, Reagan and Thatcher have redefined conservatism to include a (disciplined) welfare state...
...Katz feels nostalgia...
...upon the moral and cultural responsibilities of business corporations...
...but it does bring it closer to the democratic capitalist model...
...Katz underestimates the extent to which Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan have become the models of most of Europe's social democrats, including Soares in Portugal, Gonzales in Spain, a great many of the leading thinkers of France (who now speak derisively of socialism and enthusiastically of liberalism), and certainly of the Poles, Czechoslovaks, and Hungarians...
...Gans and Novak are liberals who in their different ways are quite satisfied with things as they are-with the market (Novak) or with the state (Gans)-and who accept the spiritual emptiness at the heart of modern society...
...Perhaps consumerism sufficed in the affluent and (economically and culturally) stable 1950s and the early 1960s...
...Orloski, I am no more inclined to romanticize small towns than to celebrate Professor Gans's "dark satanic mills...
...Conversely, there's a good deal of historical and other evidence that poverty is responsible for the kinds of effects Katz blames on the welfare state, for when people are involved in a battle for survival, it loosens their "sense of responsibility for and to each other," and also "breeds individual narcissism and callousness...
...their "safety net" does not preclude the creation of a shamefully swollen homeless population...
...First, his emphasis on freedom and invention refers to the liberal notions of negative liberty and entrepreneurial opportunity...
...Certainly not the Boeskys and Milkens, who are given carte blanche to be as greedy as they like...
...WALLACE KATZ...
...Indeed, an emphasis upon mediating structures and the cultural dimensions of economic development...
...CHARLES J. ORLOSKI, JR...
...But we also have communities like Pittsburgh, where not simply urban but civic revital-ization is a fact of life...
...Upon reflection it occurs to me that, despite appearances to the contrary, Gans and Novak have more in common with each other than with me...
...no doubt, many crosscurrents of practical disagreement will remain...
...To the Editors: I would like to congratulate Wallace Katz for the three political projects for the future that he has defined ["The Flawed Triumph of Social Democracy," February 9...
...We need much more civic cooperation and social interaction to deal with a postin-dustrial global economy, new technologies, and transformed sensibilities, as well as with old problems like poverty and racism...
...The federal government has not done much to encourage that kind of enterprise...
...it induces political passivity and distributional conflict...
...Professor Gans misreads me if he thinks that I want to destroy social democracy and the welfare state, or that I don't know the corrosive effects of poverty...
...Novak, I am inclined to reach out my hand, smile, and, in imitation of Joan Rivers, ask, "Can we talk...
...Katz weakens his observation by assuming that it's simply a matter of our consumerist passion that has rendered Americans devoid of interest in the political process...
...and am curious where Wallace Katz ["The Flawed Triumph of Social Democracy," February 9] finds such evidence...
...and of course I agree with him that we must transcend the usual dialogue of the deaf which now characterizes American political discourse...
...instead, it has continued to increase its own regulatory powers and made itself an overburdened arena for struggles between special interests...
...MICHAEL NOVAK The author replies: I'm not surprised that Professor Gans, the author of Middle American Individualism, disagrees with my criticism of extant social democracy...
...One must also ask: Who is to be disciplined...
...For Gans, middle-class "avoidance of politics" is inevitable, indeed char-acterological, and the best we can do to reform welfare-state democracy is tinker around its edges via such mechanisms as the extension of polling and government delivery of services in a "user-friendly" fashion...
...The problem is I'm not really sure we can...
...Converging themes Washington, D.C...
...The breakdown of families because of poverty is older than those dark satanic mills for which Mr...
...WALLACE KATZt it is Vaclav Havel's...
...In politics and economics, consumerism maximizes demand and minimizes participation...
...Discipline falls rather on the poor...
...Two further points...
...HERBERT J. GANS Money, power, jobs Taylor, Pa...
...For most liberal capitalists this is the whole definition of freedom, whereas for social democrats it is just the first element...
...This is not my view, nor, though I cannot speak for him, does it seem possible that it is Vaclav Havel's...
...To the Editors: It's hard to disagree with Wallace Katz's characterization of the contemporary American as being consumed with the "pleasures of consumption...
...The old models of socialism pure and simple, and "liberal capitalism" pure and simple, have been rejected as models...
...If such experienced political commentators ventured into small-town America and observed local government at work, they might observe the tri-axis of money-power-jobs dictating political docility among citizens...
...This does not make social democracy cease being social democracy...
...These are crucial weaknesses in the social democratic model, and account for efforts to make it more competitive by democratic capitalist standards...
...On these three points, social democrats are clearly converging upon the main themes of "neoconservatives," as those of us are called who are in favor of democratic capitalism...
...I think, e.g., that Mr...
...To the Editors: I have never seen any reliable evidence of a "corrosive effect of the social-democratic welfare state, whose very benefits, when 'delivered' to atomized individuals, obviate the need for family, church, trade union, community...
...it will not do in the uncertain 1990s...
...A word of protest might cost one a job, not just a V.C.R...
...What Pittsburgh has done exemplifies what I mean by reform of social democracy...
...Pace Mr...
...A full definition would include equal access to certain goods, such as education and property, and positive freedom for self-development, which implies participation in decision making in the workplace, the neighborhood, the school, and the city...
...I would describe myself as a revisionist social democrat who sees the dialectical contradictions of social democracy and wants to overcome them through a more perfect humanism...
...In this new environment, it is not easy to distinguish social democracy from democratic capitalism in their structures, although their emphases no doubt differ-the one inclining more toward "equality," the other more toward "freedom" and "invention...
...The gist of my article was to rejoice at the potential triumph of social democracy while trying to imagine and promote its reform "from the bottom up"-i.e., through locally created, democratically inclusive institutions that will build an agenda for common public work and a public sphere for critical discourse and debate...
...In these matters, ideological labels are likely to matter less in the future than the convergence upon substantive issues...
...In this respect, the record of Europe's social democracies in generating new jobs during the 1980s was far inferior to that of our own democratic capitalist society-a matter of concern to Europeans...
...Novak wants to downplay the differences between social democrats and neoconservative liberal capitalists...
...Also a matter of concern to Europeans is the fact that Europe has fallen behind both the United States and now Japan as the originator of new technologies...
...But poverty is not the only agent of individual and social dysfunction...
...Gans fails to see that the consumers of welfare-state benefits-a group that includes all Americans of every class-are not necessarily good neighbors, much less good citizens...
...Perhaps understanding a small town's mores illuminates what's happening in Washington, D.C., and perhaps Prague...
...Secondly, although Katz speaks of "Czechoslovakia's Civic Forum," Civic Forum is the specifically Czech institution in Prague...
...At the same time, large differences remain, some of which his letter reveals...
...However, Mr...
Vol. 117 • April 1990 • No. 8
