Worth reading: TPM Book Club’s discussion about Matt Bai’s book, The Argument. The posts take off on a discussion that starts with Mark Schmitt’s offer of the Center for American Progress’s plan to reduce poverty as an example of the progressive capacity to develop new ideas. Bai responds by noting that he and Mark S. agree about the “importance of a progressive argument for the future”, but differ on the state of development of the argument.

It’s interesting to me that Mark cites, as an example of big forward thinking, the CAP proposal on poverty. Now, I address this reluctantly, because I like John Podesta a lot, as readers of the book can probably tell, and I couldn’t have more respect for some of the people over there. John and I have a few differences of opinion, and for all I know he may be right on all of them. I think they’ve done very good work on a tax plan and on some education stuff, too. But when I look at the same CAP poverty plan that Mark is touting, I see a shining example of exactly the inertia that I’m talking about on the left as a whole. The CAP panel of experts, populated almost entirely by Baby Boomers who entered politics in a completely different era, retains as its premise the singular idea that people are poor because they lack money, and if you give them money they won’t be poor. In all the proposals mentioned by the panel, the sole concession to 30 years of scholarship and experience in antipoverty policy is the idea that people should work in order to receive benefits, and this is treated as a kind of huge innovation, even though most Americans have long considered this a matter of common sense. In fact, a lot of the most serious thinkers on antipoverty policy—and not conservatives, either—will tell you that we know a lot more about cyclical poverty than we did 40 years ago, and one thing we know for sure if that economic empowerment, while an important aspect of addressing it, isn’t very useful without intensive efforts to change what social scientists call the “choice infrastructure” of people’s lives. (A quick example: a mother wants to attend a parent-teacher conference, but she loses wages if she does, and so there is a reverse incentive to do what will ultimately help her child.) Barack Obama, for one, has shown a lot of interest in the Harlem Children’s Zone, which represents a seriously innovative and comprehensive approach to attacking poverty from birth. Mayor Bloomberg is experimenting with some ideas borrowed from developing countries, including paying that mother to go to the parent-teacher conference, so that she doesn’t have to worry about the lost wages. To read CAP’s report, you wouldn’t know that any of this was happening. I find that very disappointing, because there’s an opportunity here to move beyond the last century’s framework for intractable issues like poverty, and this generation of leaders—and this is true on both ideological ends—just can’t seem to get their heads around it. This is the kind of thing around which a truly vibrant intellectual left could build an entirely new argument—and may yet. But right now, there doesn’t seem to be much capacity for acknowledging that old approaches may be insufficient to current problems.

I was struck by the confusion and disagreement in the online comments about whether there should be a focus on the narrative and vision or developing specific policy ideas. Bai seems to say that the narrative on poverty could shift to “choice” infrastructure – which would require a focus on a new set of policy proposals – offering as an example Mayor Bloomberg’s offer of conditional cash transfers. “Choice” as a new frame may not work (and might not seem new to some)…. but either way, rather than touting the Bloomberg conditional cash transfers — intended to create the economic incentives that allow, for example, Mom to get to the doctor when her employer won’t provide paid sick days — wouldn’t it make more sense for progressive voices to promote leveling the playing field by ensuring ALL workers get some paid time off for health care? As Bai clearly understands, this isn’t a mere difference of policy proposals – but an effort to fit the proposal into a larger story about our shared aspirations. As a policy innovation, guaranteeing paid sick days offers a systemic solution that recognizes a problem of the labor market and ensures everyone the same “choice”. Paying only certain parents to take time off both doesn’t, and reverts to the problematic storyline about personal responsibility. (Incidentally, I now have it on good anecdotes from well-placed sources that New York City is so far having a hard time finding parents that aren’t ALREADY doing the right thing on one hand, and on the other that parents are happy to take advantage of the payment for things they already do.) So, TPM’s online debate offers new evidence that while there’s broad agreement about the need for a new narrative and vision, there’s less agreement about what counts as such. And this particular debate again proves the point about any discussion over whether the now “old” proposals for addressing poverty (making work pay) or the new ones (like Bloomberg’s proposal to pay people to “do the right thing”) are better. Both are about “poverty” and once you go there, it doesn’t seem to matter whether you focus on work or personal responsibility (although the work focus has largely devolved into an argument about personal responsibility anyway), you’re not likely to build broad support for a public investment in policy solutions. Deep in the discussion online, someone with the user name “Seashell” says:

…in many ways we are still trying to sell our Father’s Oldsmobile when we concentrate only on the poor, needy and unfairly treated. Economic and social justice principles benefit everyone in the long run, not just some people. As far as I know, we haven’t said that.

It really doesn’t matter WHO you are talking about – once you mention poverty – too many people think they know who you mean: those people who made bad choices in life by dropping out of school, or getting pregnant at a young age without benefit of a supportive, stable partner. Even the so-called “working poor” are suspect, because Americans do believe that if you work hard, you can do well. So, by definition – people who ARE working hard won’t be poor. And it doesn’t seem to matter how many facts we throw at the issue – we haven’t been able to get the support we need for the policy solutions we want. All of which suggests, we need a new way to talk about “poverty”. Poverty is too limited (by U.S. definition) and limiting (by U.S. public understanding) a notion, and as this online debate shows again – opens the door to opposing arguments in a big way. Moreover, as we say in our writing and speaking on this issue, we need something MORE than an alternative to poverty. It’s important to put forward a positive vision (what we are for, not what we are against), highlight broadly shared values, and move beyond a single-issue focus – like income poverty, or affordable housing, or child care and so on. The Center for American Progress did us all a favor by gathering together lots of ideas for addressing the larger set of issues. It’s really too bad they didn’t take the next step of rethinking the headline. In a review for another publication, I’ve said that progressives have already lost the fight on the issues of poverty and “personal responsibility”. It’s time to recast the goal as one of economic mobility and social inclusion. Too many progressives are missing an opportunity by sticking to an old – and failed – framework for this debate. The developing agenda and political campaigns of the near and longer term will benefit greatly if the larger community of advocates and funders would expend the considerable expertise and resources on developing an alternative lens on the issue, one designed to build broad political support for these policy solutions. To respond to our friend Garance Franke-Ruta, who also has posted comments about the Bai book, “Has the New Argument Already Begun to Take Shape?” : In my little corner of the world, it certainly has. And as painful as this argument can be at times, it’s progress of a kind.