The Third Way is the old-line socialists rationalization for statism, a kinder, gentler version although statism nonetheless. The power of the statist parties lies in the managerial, bureacratic and administrative infrastructure built over the last century. It doesn't work although it acts as the power base for the left or what remains of the left. In light of it's unworkability, it needs to be justified and Giddens supplies the muddleheaded justification through platitudes and social science gibberish. The nature of the state and the just powers of the state are avoide topics since the hard questions regarding it's competency would need to be addressed in much the same way the founders of the American republic wrestled with those issues. There is no 'third way' for the modern era, only societies based on ordered liberty and limited government or state sponsored and directed, social engineering projects based on utopian longings fanned by political opportunism. Anything else is just a feeble attempt to maintain power through an attempt to marry the two polarities.

Tom: OJ's a statist. I think it's only religion that stops him from being a leftist, which is an interesting demonstration of one of the themes of the blog.

David-

You may be right. His commentary is sensible and his heart is in the right place although the idea that the workability of this 'third way' stuff is entirely dependent on keeping a particular 'technocrat' away from the levers of power speaks volumes about his blind spot regarding the nature of government and the state.

Humankind has an urge for security, so there'll always be a state. Christ commands us to love another, so we're obligated to help provide. The idea that the state will wither is contrary to both human nature and God's plan for us. You can either whine about reality or try to improve the inevitable system that results.

oj-

The purpose of the state is to act as the repository the coercive power. It is deleagted the necessary and just power or that which should not be wielded by individuals acting in narrow self interest. It is the only power capable of acting in the collective interest over and above the interests of majorities or powerful minorities or individuals. It serves the 'general' interests rather than those of some over others. Christianity makes a distinction between the state and the individual and directs us as individuals since we are to be judged as individuals. Our intentions are unimportant, only our faith and our actions driven by our faith as individuals have any redemptive meaning. Directing the coercive power of the state to do that which one should already be doing for his family, his neighbor and his community is not part of Christ's teaching.

Tom:

Christ teaches us that we won't do what we should.

It doesn't matter anyway though because most people want the state to provide them some financial security, so it will. All that's left to discuss is how it does so, a discussion you're left out of if you injsist on ideological purity. That's how Republicans lost for seventy years.

Great post Tom.

oj-

So, why do you think those operating under the mantle of the state will 'do what (they) should'?

Tom;

I agree. I find it difficult to come around to the view that when Christ told us to help each other, he meant outsourcing that help to massive federal bureauocracies.

What I find most interesting is OJ's visceral aversion to outsourcing compassion to faceless robots in contrast to his strong support for outsourcing compassion to government appartchiks. Frankly, I'd rather have the robots.

We do. The point is we now have a consensus that it can be done better using free market (conservative) methods to achieve those security (liberal) ends.

oj-

No one is insisting on ideological purity other than you. The nature of the state is the issue. I'm just pointing out the dangers of attaching oneself to any worldly ideology in answer to the other 'gods that failed'.

Okay, as long as we're agreed that statism is inevitable.

AOG:

To the contrary, FBI outsources it to churches, but taxes you nonbelievers to pay for it.

oj-

If statism is inevitable, and it may be, so is the corruption and misuse of power that goes along with it.

Yes, big deal.

The state is inevitable. Statism isn't.

The state is inevitable. Statism isn't.

We've run the experiment more than a few times in more than a few places and the results are always the same. Politics just comes down to how you use the state.

You have been blessed with a sheltered life.

F.Y.I.: By statism, here at least, we're talking about it in the sense that econocons use it:

http://www.capitalism.org/faq/statism.htm

Tom:

Of course I have, I'm a white male Protestant American. None of us much need the state.

Sheltered in terms of dealings with corruption and the misuse of power. Of course you or I don't need the state, the state needs us.

Tom:

Great post above.

Tom:

So if our statism has produced only the level of corruption and abuse that we can happily live with and the Third Way is a means of reducing that statism then I'm afraid you've lost me.

Thanks, Jeff, bjw.

oj-

I want less and you'd be happy with more of the same.

How do you figure?

The 'third way' as described above, won't.

Christ teaches us that we won't do what we should.

All the more reason not to concentrate power in the hands of those who will "do what they shouldn't" to you and me under the implied credibility (inevitability?) of the State.

I'm w/ Tom & David on this one.

There's no difference between privatized SS and SS or between HSAs and Medicare or between 1990s Welfare and the Welfare Reform Act, or vouchers for DC schools, etc.?

The state isn't them, it's us.

Of course there is a difference but the 'third way' entails more than that, aside from the fact that all is well barring the technocracy's rise to power.

What more is George Bush trying to do that you object to?

Many of us (some republicans) are voting for the Republican Party because that party
is the "lesser of two evils". OJ, you sometimes seem to be argueing forcefully for the
"third way", which I would read as making the lesser evil more like the greater evil. Not my preference. By the way you may be more perceptive of what the public wants, than I am. (of course evil is inappropiate word when discussing your desires anyway)

Composing in my mind, I started with "Of course there's a difference," and then came to Tom's post. Social security with private accounts is better than social security because it means, ultimately, the end of social security. Vouchers are good because they mean the end of the public school monopoly and the political leverage of the teachers' unions. HSA's are different, because they won't mean the end of medicare, but they will reduce medicare and there's no bad reason for tax-free savings accounts.

None of those are the third-way, nor is GWB a third-way president. First, the third-way is a term of art used by European socialists (and Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton) to try to salvage something of their ideology after its collapse in the 80s and 90s. It's a way to avoid the logic and demonstrated success of the liberal market economy. As you, too, dislike the liberal market economy, you are naturally attracted to it.

Adding compassionate to conservatism is not the same as a lefty arguing for a third-way. As you've noted so often, what the president is trying to do is to find a way to political compromise in which he seems to give up things he doesn't really care about in order to slip a poison pill into a program. The president, oddly for a conservative, is adopting an incrementalist philosophy and a long-term strategy. If America really is getting more conservative, as I think we both believe, than this is a winning strategy.

You can call in compassionate conservatism, or the third way, but, as we've noted here before, the president's goal is to undo the New Deal.

Yes, but the Right's ideology collapsed in '29. All the Third Way/compassionate conservatism does is provide a state guarantee of services but delivered to the greatest extent possibly by private means.

h:

It doesn't matter what we'd want in an ideal world. Left and Right are permanent.

So Reagan, too, was a third-wayer?

oj-

You are equating the European 'third way' stuf with the president's attempt to end the New Deal and return power to individuals and their communities in a realistic and incremental fashion. He should be supported. Understand that Giddens rationalization is not the same thing and Tony Blair and New Labor's belief that there is a Third Way between the overweening buraecratic state and ordered liberty is nothing but rhetoric meant to justify a high tax, regulatory regime populated by a state supported and counterproductive bureacracy with it's own interests. I honestly hope that president Bush has not been taken in by the claptrap. By the reaction of the Democratic Party and their refusal so far to compromise on the common sense issue of private accounts it appears as if they believe that he knows exactly what he is doing.

David:

No, Reagan was perfectly content with SS as it was. He was very much a child of the Depression. Margaret Thatcher is more the precursor of both Blair and Bush.

Tom:

The government is going to collect your taxes and make you invest them in private enterprise. That's the Third Way.

Reagan knew that there was a problem with social security, where do you think this "third rail of politics" slogan came from? The time was not right.

oj-

Tony Blair is an ally. His views regarding domestic issues are wrong. George Bush is not Tony Blair.

It's never the time, is it.

The difference is that Bush is doing what Clinton and Blair merely spoke of.

uh.. Reagan had a senate majority for 2? years and the cold war needed to be brought to an end. I think he had other, more pressing priorities.

Clinton and Blair were using third-way rhetoric to give them cover for continuing the socialist program that had been proven unworkable and counterproductive. The president is trying to end those socialist programs. It is not the same thing.

David:

That's right--it's putting their rhetoric into practice. The reason they didn't is because it serves the Right more than the Left.

Tom:

Sure, there are always excuses.

I'm with the Juice on this one.

oj-

So's your old man. Just kidding. You are a funny guy.

It's using their rhetoric against them. Very nicely, too.

David:

Yes, we make their rhetoiric a reality, to their chagrin, and apparently yours.

oj-

The rhetoric is in support of social/statism with a human face. Long term, it's a loser.

You just said you support it when the President does it.

And thus there is no third-way, and the president is not a third-wayer. He's not going to implement high gas taxes, he's not going to pay any attention at all to Kyoto and he's probably going to kill Amtrak.

None of those are Third Way. Third Way is stuff he supports like trading pollution credits--government force that allows for market forces.

So the third-way is what Milton Freedman's been preaching? All markets are made by government force. The most basic requirement for a market is enforceable contracts, and they only exist where the government wants them to. That's just plain old first-way stuff.

Sure, if he espouses universal mandatory contracts--for education, retirement, health care, unemployment insurance, etc.--and limited choices within them.

Near as I can tell, oj is not a statist. But he is also not a Social Darwinist. He supports many "liberal" goals (personal security goals), provided they are pursued through market-based, maximally-decentralized, non-bureaucratic strategies (personal freedom strategies). That might be called the Fourth Way, as it's definitely not an effort to protect traditonal government programs. Call him quixotic, but he's not the only one.

Great discussion. In Orrin's defence, almost the entire voting public will insist society find a way to provide three things for just about everyone: baseline medical care, education and some support for the aged. It is very hard to imagine any modern politician making headway unless he or she has a "plan" or policy on these, and "You're on your own" isn't a plan. Nor is dreaming about private charity taking over. These are the three things just about every revolutionary regime in the 20th century rode to power on and the plinth on which the left built its political and intellectual dominance for so many years. Wouldn't they just love the right to come out against them?

If anyone who sees government as having an ultimate or lead responsibility on these things is by definition a statist, then we're almost all statists now. Surely the modern battle is over state (and judicial) management of our private, family, community and even religious lives. How and where Orrin draws his lines on these issues is, like creation and what women really want, one of life's enduring mysteries.

Peter-

I'm not sure he draws any lines, as long as a 'technocrat like Giuliani' is kept from leading the Republican party. The politics of the whimsical.

Even Reagan disparaged Social Security - remember when he talked about families taking care of older members (back in the day)?

It didn't take much insight to see in 1982/83 that the numerical problems we see in 2005 were closer than most would admit (even after the 75 year "fix").

But Medicare - that is the gorilla NO one is willing to wrestle. Appease, yes. But tackle, no.

The whole Third Way discussion is likely to be blown apart by an issue outside the template (i.e., immigration or war over Taiwan, NK, etc.).

I wouldn't call Guiliani a "technocrat", but rather a policrat. He may be electable, but he might do for the GOP what Clinton did for the Democrats. For sure, he would have a very awkward relationship with the base, even if he were to win 40 states in 2008. However, of all the GOP possibilities, Rudy is the most likely to raise taxes and preen for the media, which makes him more than just 'whimsical'.

Jim-

I've never thoght of Rudy as a technocrat either, that was oj's characterization. I'm not even sure what a technocrat is other than one committed to the social sciences and politics. Third Wayers and socialists come immediately to mind.

The opposite: someone almost without a politics, who doesn't believe in anything but making government function more smoothly. Rudy is a GOP version of Dukakis.

The opposite? To call Dukakis a technocrat or a practical, unideological statesman/politician is wacky.

Rudy strikes me as being what Richard Nixon strove to be (but never could).

Of course, minus 9/11, Rudy would be a footnote in politics, due pretty much entirely to the helplessness of David Dinkins.

Dukakis wanted to be perceived as a technocrat. It didn't work.

John McCain has the same desire, although he is much more hot-headed. It won't work for him, either. Americans view the technocrats with suspicion (like they did Adlai Stevenson).

E.g., Bill Clinton may have wanted to govern as a technocrat, but he certainly didn't risk running as one. Al Gore tried to (at least for a while), and look what it got him. Quite an underwhelming response.

Why the term technocrat? If you're trying to describe statesmanship why not use the word? Technocrat has the same smell as 'third way'. They're both examples of ivory tower meaninglessness. If you're a politician and a micromanager and socialism is out of fashion call yourself a Third Wayist. It is, for lack of a better term, crap.

Because technocrats don't believe in anything but their own superiority at managment. Neither Dukakis nor Ruday has any real core beliefs.

Dukakis understood that the administrative/bureaucratic state is the source of power for politicians like himself. Bureaucracies are accountable to themselves and a diversion for the disatification of the electorate.

All politicians understand that. Technocrats just want to run the bureaucracy better.

oj-

The vast majority of politicians can't see past the next election, raising their salaries and benefits while increasing their influence and their paid staff. Statesman are 1 in a thousand.

Actually the technocrats tend to be rather parsimonious where tax expenditures on themselves are concerned and very goo-goo.

Examples, please.

Dukakis

Is it fair to say that Gray Davis ran as a 'better' governmental manager? Didn't work out too well for him, either.

OJ's description of "goo-goo" is quite apt. People who run on their bureaucratic 'expertise' almost always get eaten by the tiger. Bush 41 had a bit of that problem (the best resume ever), and so do people like Dick Gephardt, even when it is manifestly obvious that they have never accomplished anything and (more importantly) have never inspired others to follow them. Kerry is another example, although the dynamics of last year's campaign did not allow for such a discussion (his attendance record).

Yes, Davis was a quintessential technocrat.

Davis nearly destroyed California. Taxes, budgets and the regulatory, bureacratic infrastructure grew at alarming rates because he believed it was in his and his party's interest for them to do so. The NASDAQ collapse sealed his fate. Short-sighted and supremely self-interested is no way to govern.

Tom:

No one said they were good at it.

"...someone almost without politics,..interested in making the governmsnt run more smoothly..."
"...technocrats just want to run the beauracracy better."

You left out 'disintersted, competent, managerial'. Yet, Davis was the quintessential technocrat?

Yes. Where you get competent I have no idea.

Rudy was competent. Davis was not. Dukakis, I doubt it.

rudy was in the right place at the right time.

The left hated rudy.

The left hated rudy from the beginning. Cleaning up Times Square and cracking down on crime was the reason. Pre- 9/11 he was reviled. That's good enough for me.

No they didn't. They live in NYC and liked having it safe. Rudy got credit for it.

oj-

I lived and worked there at the time. They hated him. Stopping the pogroms did work in his favor with some on the upper west side, however.

He was popular until he started supporting Bush.

The NYC left is a different animal. They were nostaligc for the 60's 70's New York. I'm not making this up. Getting ticketed for smoking pot, removing hookers from the street, rezoning the pornography districts and the like really disturbed these folks.

They voted for him.

The point is that they became supporters after being shown the error of their ideological ways. Rudy was a statesman in the sense that he stuck to his principles in spite of noisy opposition (the NYT in particular)from the screwball, NYC left. The unions, the press and the civil liberties types bent to the mayors' will and the people of the city are better off.

So they didn't hate him.

They didn't like the direction he was going until they saw that it was better for the quality of life in the city. Leftists don't know what good for them. You're surprised?