A Nation in Deep Trouble

...A Nation in Deep Trouble By John W Gardner We have seen in the years since 1961 a growth of domestic social programs unrivalled m our history, except during the Depression These include activities m and out of government m every corner of the land Americans have experienced an extraordinary outburst of social conscience, marked first and foremost by a heightened awareness of social problems There is no precedent for the scope of goals envisoned by the individuals, public and private, concerned with these matters today We have declared war on ignorance, disease, poverty, discrimination, mental or physical incapacity—in fact, on every condition that stunts human growth or diminishes human digmty Though we may be heartened by the progress we have made, it is a struggle all the way and serious difficulties he ahead Consider the coming crunch between expectations and resources The expectations of the American people for social benefits are virtually limitless In the past six years we have opened up innumerable areas of constructive governmental activity in early childhood education, work with handicapped youngsters, special education for the disadvantaged, health research, work on artificial organs, programs for the aged, rural development efforts, conservation and beautification activities, manpower training, and so on Most of these programs have begun on a modest scale, and the proponents of every social institution or group aided by them believe passionately that support to their field must be vastly enlarged in the near future John W Gardner, -whose article here is adapted from a speech delivered before the Amencan Statistical Association, leaves his post as Secretary of hew on March 1 The colleges and universities also have ideas for future Federal support that would amount to billions per year, and they ask little compared to the advocates of aid to elementary and secondary education The annual cost of a guaranteed income would run to scores of billions Estimates of the cost of adequate air and water pollution control and solid waste disposal run even higher, while estimates for renovating our cities come to hundreds of billions...

...How can we diminish the resort to violence...

...How can we caution them against exploitative leaders, leaders lustful for power or for the spotlight, leaders caught in their own vanity or emotional instability, leaders selling extremist ideologies...

...Violence cannot build a better society No society can live m constant and destructive tumult We will have either a civil order in which discipline is internalized m the breast of each free and responsible citizen, or sooner or later we will have repressive measures designed to re-establish order The anarchist plays into the hands of the authoritarian Those of us who find authoritarianism repugnant have a duty to speak out against all who destroy civil order The tune has come when the full weight of community opinion should be brought to bear on those who break the peace or seek to force decisions through mob action, or those who by-pass established democratic procedures in favor of coercive demonstrations Dissent is an element of dynamism in our system It is good that men expect much of their institutions, and good that then: aspirations for improvement are ardent But the elements of dynamism must have stabilizing counterparts One is a tough-minded recognition that the fight for a better world is a long one, a recognition that retams high hopes while it immunizes agaanst childish collapse or destructive rage in the face of disappointment The other is an unswerving commitment to keep the pubhc peace We also need something else An mcreasmg number of very bright and able people must become involved m the development of pubhc pohcy Ours is a difficult and exhilarating form ot government, not for the faint of heart, not for the tidy-imnded, and in these days of complexity, not for the stupid America needs men and women who can bring to government the highest order of intellect, social motivations sturdy enough to withstand setbacks, and a resilience of spirit equal to the frustrations of pubhc life and the grave difficulties of the days ahead...

...How can we make people understand that if they expect all good things instantly they will destroy everything...

...How do we tell them that they must maintain unrelenting pressure on then-social institutions to accomphsh beneficial change but must not, m a fit of rage, destroy those mstitutions...

...Today we attribute budget constraints to the Vietnam war But if the war ended tomorrow, in 12 months we would be bumping agamst the ceiling of resource constraints How then, do we make rational choices between goals when our resources are limited—and will always be limited relative to expectations9 How can we gather the data, evaluate it, and accomplish the plannmg necessary for making rational choices9 We can have our cake and eat at least some of it it we secure a higher yield from the dollars, talent and institutional strength available to us But this approach raises questions of good management and unit cost that are painful to most people active m the social fields Once, m talking with a physician who treated poor people, I asked about umt costs of his government-supported clinic He replied, "I'm not an efficiency expert I just want to heal sick people ' What this doctor was refusing to face is that somewhere up the line hard decisions will necessarily be made, and a limit placed on resources available for health care So if he is in fact functioning with high unit costs, the number of sick people he can treat will be correspondingly few Without knowing it, he has made a decision on resource allocation A forced choice is not the only consequence of limited resources Any effort to plan and rationalize the allocation of resources tends to reduce pluralism and to introduce new kinds of institutional controls If, for instance, we have less than enough to spend in constructing hospitals then we must be sure that those we do build are properly located and designed to accomplish the greatest good In doing so, we move toward a measure of social control The Federal government has avoided infringement of local autonomy by askmg the states to perform the necessary planning functions But whether the controls are at the Federal, regional or state level, the rational use ot resources encourages the creation of large-scale, interconnected systems, and the comprehensive planning of those systems Traditionally, Americans have no appetite for this kind of systematic planning, and our nongovernmental institutions—be they universities or hospitals or scientific laboratories—are not accustomed to thinking of themselves as parts of an immense whole It is possible, I believe, to accomplish a substantial measure of rational social planning and still retain the most important features of local and institutional autonomy It will require a conscious effort, though, and a knowing grasp of what is involved President Johnson has proposed that the Federal government operate more and more through mutually respecting partnerships with state and local governments, with the universities and corporations, and with the other great estates of the private sector Rightly designed, these partnerships could maintain the dispersion of power and initiative that we cherish But it will take a lot of skill and ingenuity to design the partnerships wisely and well Meanwhile, our pattern of stumbling into the future is expensive In our efforts to husband our resources and allocate them intelligently we must be able to predict future needs and expenditures Proper use of limited resources involves the orderly formulation of goals, the evaluation of means to achieve those goals, and the development of strategies and cost-estimates for getting from where we are to where we want to be Yet we must not approach social goals plans and priorities as though the only significant considerations were rational and technical In the development of public policy, that can never be So let us turn to people People used to be fatalistic about their problems because they attributed them to the will of God or the forces of Nature, or simply to the unchanging order of things For the past three centuries, however, man has gamed increasing confidence, justified or not, that he can take a hand m determining his own fate and can nd himself of at least a few of the ancient afflictions Whatever else the consequences, that shift places a very heavy burden on man and his institutions The individual who used to curse his fate now curses himself or his employer or the party m power The pressures and strains on institutions are particularly severe when people who have suffered oppression, as have some of our minority groups, begin to envision a better life Once the grip of tradition or apathy or oppression has been broken and people can hope for more, their aspirations rise very steeply Unfortunately, the institutions that must satisfy those aspirations change at the same old glacial pace As thmgs stand now, modern man believes—if only with half his mind—that his institutions can accomplish just about anything The fact that they fall very far short of that goal is due, he feels, to the prevalence of people who love power or money more than they love mankind I find an appealing (or appalling) innocence in this view I have had ample opportunity over the years to observe the diverse institutions of this society—the colleges and universities, the military services, busmess corporations, foundations, professions, government agencies, and so on And I must report that even excellent institutions run by excellent human beings are inherently sluggish, not hungry for innovation, not quick to respond to human need, not eager to reshape themselves to meet the challenge of the times I am not suggesting a polarity between men and their institutions—men eager for change, institutions blocking it Institutions, after all, are run by men, and often those who appear most eager for change oppose it most stubbornly when their own institutions are involved I give you the university professor, a great friend of the reformer, provided the patterns of academic life are not affected His motto is "Innovate away from home " We are going to have to do a far more imaginative and aggressive job of renewing, redesigning, revitalizing our institutions if we are to meet today's challenges It should also be stressed that the overall limit on resources available to our government programs is determined not just by the economy and not just by the rational and technical processes of budgeting It is equally dependent upon the perception of Congress and the pubhc as to what needs domg and how badly it needs doing, upon the willingness of the public to be taxed for relevant purposes, upon the courage ot the Administration in calling for taxes and of the Congress in enactmg them We are now at the point where the gravest consequences for this nation will ensue if we fail to act decisively on the problems of the cities, poverty and discrimination Human misery in the ghettos is not a figment of the imagination It can be read in the statistics on infant mortality, in the crime rate, in the unemployment figures, in the data on educational retardation We must deal responsively and not pumtively with human need But it does not seem to me that either the Congress or the pubhc is fully aware of the alarming character of our domestic crisis We are m deep trouble as a people And history is not gomg to deal kindly with a rich nation that will not tax itself to cure its miseries i The modern belief that man's institutions can accomphsh just about anything he wants, when he wants, has led to certain characteristic contemporary phenomena One is the bitterness and anger that occurs when high hopes turn sour No observer of the current scene has failed to note the cynicism prevalent today toward all leaders, all officials, all social institutions That cynicism is continually fed by the rage of people who expected too much in the first place and got too little m the end While aspirations are healthy in themselves, soaring hope followed by rude disappointment is a formula for trouble It breeds leaders whose whole stock in trade is to exploit first the aspirations and then the disappointment These men profit on both the ups and the downs of the market The roller coaster of aspiration and disillusionment is amusing to the extreme conservative, who thought the high hopes silly in the first place It gives satisfaction to the Left-wing nihihst who thinks the whole system should be brought down anyway It is a gold mme for mountebanks willing to promise anything and exploit every emotion And it is a devastating whipsaw for serious and responsible leaders This leaves us with crucial and puzzling questions of pubhc policy How can we make sluggish institutions more responsive to human need and to the requirements of change9 How can we mobilize our resources to meet the crises ahead9 How can we preserve our aspirations (the essence of social betterment) and at the same time develop the toughness of mind and spirit to face the fact that there are no easy victories...