America spawned the philosophy known as 'pragmatism,' though it seems a forgotten relic if one reads the headlines about American politics on a regular basis. While philosophical pragmatism makes specific claims on "truth," pragmatism as a practical philosophy is really more about a world view that accepts the notion that the right answer or best answer to any question is the one that works best under a given set of circumstances. In this regard, pragmatism was a quintessentially American approach to the problems of the world because it eschewed dogmatism and idealism in favor of tangible or measurable results.
In the current political climate, the idea of adopting an approach to the problems we face that focuses on results over preconceived ideas about the problems we face is anathema. I am reminded in particular of the vitriol in Wisconsin following Scott Walker's election to governor and the enactment of Act 10, which stripped public unions of many collective bargaining rights. I found Act 10, and continue to find Act 10, to be abhorrent because I believe it will not solve budgetary problems in a productive manner. Nevertheless, I felt like an outlier among liberals in thinking that Walker ought at least to have an opportunity to govern without recall and that I sincerely hoped that my disagreements with Act 10 would be proven wrong. My preconceptions are such that I do not find credence in the notion that taking away power from labor and deregulating any given market will actually yield positive socio-economic growth for the majority of citizens. It seems to me that the persuasive evidence is that the trickle down theory of economics has not yielded the tangible benefits its proponents promised. However, I am not so prideful or convinced of my own infallibility that I would preclude the possibility that I could be wrong.
The problem we face is that few persons in the policy-making process are willing to adopt a pragmatic approach to policy problems. While I feel liberals are more amenable to pragmatics than most persons who self-identify as conservative, the problem is not partisan. Both sides of the aisle cling to a priori political 'truths' without regard for the practical effects of actual policy. In structural terms, the federal deficit is a perfect example of the need for a more pragmatic approach. The current Congress has a balance of power that makes effective legislation impossible without compromise. Instead of seeking real world solutions that a majority of democrats and republicans could live with, each party in Congress draws lines in the sand that the party knows the other party cannot live with. The result, as frequently pointed out, is that the current Congress is the least productive since 1947. While gridlock may have the benefit of a certain negative stability, gridlock leaves pressing problems untouched.
The history of American politics is not a Polly Anna-ish tradition of bipartisan compromise on every issue facing the nation. On the other hand, the history of American politics demonstrates that intractable policy problems can be resolved when the political leaders of both parties adopt a pragmatic approach to problem solving. The Civil Rights Act was never going to win over large majorities in the South. Still, the Johnson Administration was able to use a realistic approach to win over enough cross-over votes to defeat the Southern bloc's filibuster. The final bill had to be drafted as a compromise in order to get enough votes, but the Administration and Congressional proponents were not so idealistically narrow-minded that they refused to promote a compromise bill. In the end, the Civil Rights Act cleared the Senate 70-29. The end result was flawed legislation to be sure, but legislation that nonetheless addressed the most egregious aspects of racial discrimination that had been perpetuated since the Republican's lost the majority that enabled them to enact the Reconstruction legislation and constitutional amendments.
In more recent memory, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton come to mind as examples of politicians whose power and popularity was not derived because of inflexibility but rather was derived because of their willingness to find acceptable compromises. As is well documented, Ronald Reagan effectively raised taxes five times during his eight years in office. Of course, the tax increases were parts of overall tax policy compromises that raised taxes in exchange for eliminating loopholes. In effect, the Reagan administration was able to increase tax revenue while decreasing the individual tax burden to businesses and individuals. This sort of creative and practical policy making is sorely missed today.
Bill Clinton's biggest accomplishments were similarly the product of creative compromise and a pragmatic approach to policy making. Welfare reform was the product of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich understanding that the current welfare policy in America did not enjoy majority support. We can quibble over the veracity of claims made about the welfare policy and whether it was in fact responsible for creating the 'cycle of dependency' so frequently descried in talking points of the time. However, we cannot quibble with the fact that a majority of Americans opposed the welfare policy as it existed in the mid-1990's. Gingrich would never get a wholesale elimination of welfare and Clinton could never get as generous a welfare program as he wanted. Instead, Gingrich was able to get the enormously popular welfare to work provisions to place conditions on receipt of welfare benefits. Clinton was able to preserve the benefits and could claim victory in the press by noting that welfare recipients would have to work to keep their benefits. This provision was in accord with the policy preferences of a majority of Americans at time.
Clinton was also able to use the welfare policy compromise to increase enforcement of child support obligations. Gingrich could likewise claim this as a victory because it allowed him to say the republican party did not condone scofflaws. In effect, the compromise allowed both parties to recognize that some form of welfare was necessary while shifting the focus of receipt of benefits from entitlement to a safety net designed to foster and enforce commonly accepted notions of personal responsibility. In fact, this is where most American's stood at the time. A solid majority of Americans supported the notion that those in need of a helping hand should receive one so long as it was only a helping hand and not a lifetime giveaway. In addition, a majority of Americans supported the idea that child support should be strictly enforced because they believed the parents of children, whether custodial or not, should bear responsibility for supporting their children.
What discourages me now is the lack of any common vision toward policies that allow both parties to gain something in exchange for giving something up. I will admit that I consider the republicans in Congress to be more obstructionist than the democrats, but I also admit that this is at least partly a bias. We need the leadership of both parties to address the problems facing the nation directly through creative compromise and pragmatic politics rather than to stand to one side of the aisle and point their collective fingers at the other side while baying, 'it's their fault' like children. The American tradition is a pragmatic one. Of finding solutions to problems that, however imperfect, are solutions. The American character is not exceptionally moral or intellectual or homogeneous. The American character is, however, practical. We are usually good at finding ways to make things work. This character is not the most ideologically pure, but it is who we are. To the extent we become more dogmatic (which I think is actually a better word than 'partisan'), we stray from who we are and we do so at our own peril.
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