One of the central questions of American (and not only American) political thought is the dependence of self-government on broader cultural resources and some geopolitical infrastructure. That dependence was an animating topic of debates during the Founding, in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, during the New Deal, and, yes, even in movement conservatism in the 20th century. Different political orientations might emphasize different elements of this institutional importance, but concern with this topic can be seen across the political spectrum.
Across American history, policy played an important role in addressing those ends. Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures, Henry Clay’s “American system,” Lincoln’s industrial policies, the Homestead Acts, the various investments in infrastructure and technology during the world wars of the 20th century — all these testify to the longstanding interest in using government policy to promote certain political ends. The goals of such policy efforts might vary, from ensuring an industrial base so that the nation can compete in great-power politics abroad to promoting a freeholding middle class at home. But these efforts all took seriously the role of certain institutions in promoting the public good and political liberty.
I thought this post could be an opportunity to look at (okay--write a string of observations about) some elements of this turn to institutions.
Yuval Levin's book A Time to Build takes institutions as its core. According to Levin, institutions are "the durable forms of our common life. They are the frameworks and structures that we do together." Levin surveys various institutions--from government bodies to schools to media organizations. He outlines the challenges they face and what could be done (especially from within those institutions) to make them function better.
In a column in First Things, R. R. Reno reflects on that Levin's discussion of institutions. One of the things he highlights is the way institutions offer a kind of groundedness for our individual lives:
We imagine we can go it alone, but in truth, institutions give shape, direction, and stability to our lives. We champion equality, but institutions require hierarchies. So we are pulled in two directions. We naturally gravitate toward institutions. Even the free-spirited establish informal fraternities; dedicated surfers and mountain climbers come together to celebrate shared passions. All the while, we don’t want to see ourselves as “joiners,” and we shy away from a strong vocabulary of loyalty.
For a model of atomized politics, all that matters is the individual or the state. But an institutionally informed politics attends to those ways that institutions shape our lives as individuals. Moreover, it might seek as a public policy aim to shore up certain institutions and institutional networks (such as the family or industrial supply chains) in part because it holds that institutions have a tacit knowledge that is not easily replaced.
The latest issue of American Affairs has a passel of articles related to institutions, grouped under the heading of "Corporatist Models in America and Asia." Michael Lind looks at the deeper trend of institutional alliances in American policy, while Gladden Pappin considers empowering certain institutions in calling for a 21st-century corporatism. Looking across the Pacific, David Adler and Reza Hasmath examine corporatist models for economic development in South Korea and China. Adler's piece, for instance, highlights the way that institutions as nodes of knowledge can lead to innovation (and how their loss can hamper innovation): as South Korea gained the ability to manufacture key technologies, the ability to innovate in those technologies soon followed.
The latest issue of American Affairs has a passel of articles related to institutions, grouped under the heading of "Corporatist Models in America and Asia." Michael Lind looks at the deeper trend of institutional alliances in American policy, while Gladden Pappin considers empowering certain institutions in calling for a 21st-century corporatism. Looking across the Pacific, David Adler and Reza Hasmath examine corporatist models for economic development in South Korea and China. Adler's piece, for instance, highlights the way that institutions as nodes of knowledge can lead to innovation (and how their loss can hamper innovation): as South Korea gained the ability to manufacture key technologies, the ability to innovate in those technologies soon followed.
One of Mickey Kaus's great strengths is his contrarian streak. At a time when proponents of institutional politics seem to be gaining ground, he raises doubts about "corporatism."
The main problem [with corporatism] is that it's inegalitarian in a very non-American way. Who says reporters get to be the eyes and ears of society, with a special "press privilege" (under one popular consitutional theory) that ordinary citizens don't get? Why do executives at Facebook, say, get included in tripartite talks but not other executives at other websites? Why do they make so much money, anyway? It’s one thing if they've attained their economic status through free and fair competition. It's another if they’re formally granted extra power because they're prosperous at the moment — thereby enabling them, in a corporatist order, to maintain their advantage into the future.
Corporatism inherently seems to create a bias in favor preserving that status quo -- of protecting the big boys in the room, especially if that's an arrangement that’s worked in the past. Is the Trump administration really going to break up Google on antitrust grounds if Google successfully designs the virus-testing website for 350 million people (something Google may or may not actually be doing)? We get all the inequality of capitalism, without the justification that it’s been earned in a market -- and without a competitive market’s ability to automatically adjust to new conditions, invisible handishly. That inequality’s all the nastier because it seems more permanent— reflecting your station in life, your role in the organism. It’s no accident corporatism was the economic model of … well, you know what it was the economic model of.
These are not insignificant objections. There's a risk that elevating certain institutional interests can be a way of encouraging sclerosis and self-dealing. Perhaps that's part of the reason why the post-World War II corporatist consensus began to unravel in the 1970s; the layers and layers of corporatist agreements combined with a shift in geopolitics made the American economy dysfunctional.
By favoring certain giant interests, corporatism can help cement a new quasi-aristocracy, and there's no guarantee that this newly empowered corporatist elite will look out for the common good. After all, the era of Too Big to Fail seems to have many corporatist elements for finance, and TBTF seems to have extended the negative effects of financialization.
By favoring certain giant interests, corporatism can help cement a new quasi-aristocracy, and there's no guarantee that this newly empowered corporatist elite will look out for the common good. After all, the era of Too Big to Fail seems to have many corporatist elements for finance, and TBTF seems to have extended the negative effects of financialization.
Of course, the excesses of neoliberal atomization have also undermined the vitality of the American economy, and new, market-dominant behemoths in finance and tech have also formed. (Arguably, part of an institutionally-informed economics would also seek to police institutions that grow too vast and anti-competitive. This has been a major theme of Matt Stoller's work.)
Perhaps there's a way of threading the needle of looking out for key institutions or sectors without also entrenching a managerial elite, or at least having enough churn that this managerial elite is not entirely closed. Certainly, certain institutional investments in things like telecommunications infrastructure could benefit a variety of stakeholders. A tight labor market could be a vehicle for strengthening individuals workers as well as unions, which could then gain more bargaining power within bigger corporate institutions. "Buy American" provisions for certain federal purchases could be a way of preserving some manufacturing institutions within picking specific companies.
Perhaps there's a way of threading the needle of looking out for key institutions or sectors without also entrenching a managerial elite, or at least having enough churn that this managerial elite is not entirely closed. Certainly, certain institutional investments in things like telecommunications infrastructure could benefit a variety of stakeholders. A tight labor market could be a vehicle for strengthening individuals workers as well as unions, which could then gain more bargaining power within bigger corporate institutions. "Buy American" provisions for certain federal purchases could be a way of preserving some manufacturing institutions within picking specific companies.
Maybe another way of looking at institutional politics would be to say that, over the course of history, the United States and other nations bounce between empowering institutions and weakening them. Centralization and diffusion work in a push-and-pull process. The middle of the 20th century saw considerable institutionalization, but the last part of that century witnessed the dispersion of many of those energies in the name of empowering certain individual efforts. Now, we may be experiencing a return to more institutionalized politics (something the COVID-19 pandemic could easily accelerate).
