tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/charles-murray-2365/articlesCharles Murray – The Conversation2017-11-26T23:01:06Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/879832017-11-26T23:01:06Z2017-11-26T23:01:06ZCampus culture wars: Why universities must ditch the dogma<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196183/original/file-20171123-17985-wj1mvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People demonstrate in Toronto in August 2017 in solidarity with those at a University of Virginia rally against white supremacy. That demonstration ended in tragedy after a woman was killed by a white supremacist. Universities in both the U.S. and Canada are at the centre of fierce debates about free speech and the right of those on the far right to be heard. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Academic freedom controversies continue to bedevil universities in North America, highlighted most recently by <a href="http://toronto.citynews.ca/2017/11/16/laurier-launches-third-party-investigation-after-ta-plays-clip-of-gender-debate/">the stunning episode</a> at Canada’s Wilfrid Laurier University. </p>
<p>A teaching assistant in a communications program was reprimanded for showing video clips of a debate on the use of gender-neutral language, a scolding that seems almost incomprehensible in a university setting.</p>
<p>Academic freedom is not absolute, and there are some reasonable constraints that govern its application. But none have been offered that justify Wilfrid Laurier’s rebuke of the teaching assistant. </p>
<p>Lindsay Shepherd appeared to <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/11/16/laurier-university-starts-independent-probe-after-teaching-assistant-plays-clip-of-gender-debate.html">have been encouraging debate</a> and civil discourse on a topic about which people disagree. That, indeed, is a key function of academic freedom, and of the university itself, which the Wilfrid Laurier administration has now recognized <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/laurier-lindsay-shepherd-apology-video-petersen-1.4412595">in its public apology to her</a>.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/items/biz/resource/CF_ProfessorFreeSpeech_i_v3.pdf">militant campus activists</a> from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum have sought, with some success, to <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/Professors-Growing-Risk-/240424">shut each other up</a> through demonstrations, threats and alarming social media campaigns. Universities and colleges are struggling to define the boundaries of acceptable speech. </p>
<h2>Grappling with free expression on campus</h2>
<p>In what ways can free expression in higher education be reasonably constrained? There are several.</p>
<p>Fraudulent research by professors and students are grounds for dismissal in the case of the former, and severe academic penalty in the case of the latter.</p>
<p>Professors are not entitled to publish anything they write in academic journals. They are subject to peer review, and editors can require them to revise manuscripts; submissions perceived to fall short will be rejected.</p>
<p>Academics can be made to teach certain courses, and prevented from teaching others, in the interest of meeting student demand and program coherence.</p>
<p>While academics and students are entitled to publicly criticize their administrations (is there a single non-university organization that would allow this?), most deans, vice-presidents and other senior administrators, who may also be academics, do not have that freedom.</p>
<p>In the classroom, university teachers must lecture competently; they do not have a licence to use their podiums in order to lie, propagandize or speak in habitually ill-informed ways. </p>
<h2>Different forms of expression</h2>
<p>Free speech allows citizens to do this on street corners or blogs, but universities have loftier goals. </p>
<p>Academic freedom and freedom of speech are not the same thing; they are different forms of expression, both vital, in a democratic society. Can a university legitimately restrict the use of certain language or otherwise govern the interactions of its members?</p>
<p>In the past, professors who demeaned women, spoke or behaved in racist ways (the history of sexism and <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Canada_s_Jews.html?id=fIZ6wftL3oQC">anti-Semitism</a> on Canadian campuses <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=tSYp9kaJWXQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Youth+university+and+canadian+society&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwijtd_M5dLXAhVs64MKHbPtBowQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=Youth%20university%20and%20canadian%20society&f=false%20(https://books.google.ca/books?id=2uzyEFWonjEC&pg=PT6&dq=gerald+tulchinsky+branching+out&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnk5LB49LXAhUhxoMKHbMKBLgQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=gerald%20tulchinsky%20branching%20out&f=false)">is well-documented</a>), or degraded and demeaned students, had free rein. They were not accountable for their words and actions.</p>
<p>This, rightly so, is no longer the case. Universities are now committed to treating their members equitably and with dignity.</p>
<p>Codes of professional behaviour have evolved, and those teaching at universities may not use sexist or racist language, nor can they humiliate students. Professors can vigorously challenge students’ ideas and criticize their academic work, but this must be done respectfully and professionally.</p>
<p>Regulations and guidelines upholding such standards, in my view, are entirely justified.</p>
<p>Another restraint in Canada can be found in the country’s Criminal Code. Speech that promotes “genocide” and “incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace” is illegal, on and off university campuses. </p>
<h2>White supremacists denied?</h2>
<p>The law, presumably, could deny a university platform to white supremacists, like those <a href="http://www.theroot.com/white-supremacists-from-deadly-charlottesville-va-ral-1819435212">who marched and chanted racist and anti-Semitic slogans</a> in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this year. (The U.S. has no such hate law.) </p>
<p>Neo-fascists who speak in code, avoiding overt hate-mongering, could be exposed and denounced by critics. But, if their words break no law, forcefully silencing them sets a perilous precedent that could be used to curtail vexatious presentations by those with different political views.</p>
<p>Some argue that such regulations of speech and language are insufficient — a stance that has led to major flare-ups on American and <a href="http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/facing-pushback-ryerson-cancels-panel-discussion-on-campus-free-speech">Canadian campuses</a>, including the Wilfrid Laurier episode. </p>
<p>Certain activists on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/canadian-social-rights-activists-are-legitimizing-the-alt-right-84813">left seek to prohibit any form of expression</a> which might offend identifiable groups. That has meant controversial conservatives like Ann Coulter, Charles Murray and Jordan Peterson have been interrupted or uninvited from campuses <a href="https://theconversation.com/free-expression-at-universities-gagged-by-anti-trump-backlash-83079">rather than being debated or intellectually confronted.</a> </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196186/original/file-20171123-18017-1colvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196186/original/file-20171123-18017-1colvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196186/original/file-20171123-18017-1colvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196186/original/file-20171123-18017-1colvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196186/original/file-20171123-18017-1colvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196186/original/file-20171123-18017-1colvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196186/original/file-20171123-18017-1colvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Protestors shout outside the University of Calgary where American right-wing conservative pundit Ann Coulter gave a talk on freedom of speech in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Larry MacDougal</span></span>
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<p>Through U.S. publications such as Campus Reform and <a href="http://www.professorwatchlist.org/">Professor Watchlist</a>, militants on the right have declared intellectual and political war on leftists, post-modernists and other reviled equity warriors. Such surveillance and attempted political shaming have encouraged some extremists to <a href="http://www.syracuse.com/su-news/index.ssf/2017/04/syracuse_university_professors_fight_blacklisting.html">threaten the lives</a> of targeted faculty.</p>
<h2>Dogma and intolerance</h2>
<p>These equally illiberal campaigns from both right and left, rife with dogmatism and intolerance, threaten to paralyze universities and erode their academic <em>raison d’être</em>, which must be rediscovered and reaffirmed by administrators, faculty and students.</p>
<p>The fundamental purpose of academic freedom is to facilitate the widest possible scope for expression by professors and students. The university’s commitment to equity and cultural diversity can affect, to some degree, the conduct of university relationships, including the use of language.</p>
<p>Prohibitions on racism, sexism and harassment are legitimate and necessary. But behavioural regulations can be too wide-ranging, ineptly applied, or taken to extremes by zealous advocates who seek to silence rather than intellectually engage their adversaries. </p>
<p>The middle ground is increasingly submerged by competing dogmas in this polarized age. Universities and colleges should commit the radical act of restoring reason and rationality to their policies and practices. The future of our institutions, and possibly civil society itself, requires it.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece that originally appeared in the Toronto Star</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87983/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Axelrod does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In such a polarized age, universities and colleges should uphold the core values of liberal education by asserting, through their policies and practices, the reasonable, rational middle ground.Paul Axelrod, Professor Emeritus, Education and History, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/696952016-12-22T12:38:04Z2016-12-22T12:38:04ZBasic income is a radical idea bound for the political mainstream – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150502/original/image-20161216-26082-eth6jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mission: poverty eradication. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-530801674/stock-photo-basic-income-words-on-red-keyboard-button.html?src=J774vJLGC3i3jbPDeS93JQ-1-1">Kunst Bilder</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>An idea gaining traction in various part of the world is that everyone in society should receive an amount of money from the state to cover their basic cost of living. People would no longer be stigmatised on benefits, argue supporters. </p>
<p>Dependent women would become financially independent. People would be freed to care for the elderly, crime would fall and the general health of the population would improve. Particularly in an era of <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21700758-will-smarter-machines-cause-mass-unemployment-automation-and-anxiety">fears about</a> future mass unemployment caused by automation, there is a growing feeling that this citizens’ basic income is an idea that’s time has come. </p>
<p>Experiments are either getting underway or have taken place in parts of <a href="http://basicincome.org/news/2016/09/ontario-canada-new-report-minimum-income-pilot/">Canada</a>, <a href="https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/167728/WorkingPapers106.pdf?sequence=4">Finland</a>, <a href="http://isa-global-dialogue.net/indias-great-experiment-the-transformative-potential-of-basic-income-grants/">India</a> and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/26/dutch-city-utrecht-basic-income-uk-greens">Netherlands</a>. Now Scotland could become the first part of the UK to trial such a system. Fife and Glasgow councils have both <a href="http://basicincome.org/news/2016/11/scotland-fife-glasgow-investigate-basic-income-pilots/">held discussions</a> recently, while a new body, Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland, has <a href="http://basicincome.org/news/2016/11/glasgow-scotland-citizens-basic-income-network-scotland-launch-event-nov-26/">launched</a>. </p>
<p>Scotland is at a useful crossroads for such an experiment because it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/29/social-security-not-benefits-scotland-to-ponder-words-of-welfare">will have</a> a new <a href="https://consult.scotland.gov.uk/social-security/social-security-in-scotland">social security system</a> after a number of benefits are devolved from London over the next couple of years. The citizens’ basic income has <a href="https://greens.scot/news/greens-publish-citizens-income-plan-for-fairer-scotland/">long been a policy</a> of the Scottish Greens, but political support has been widening this year after the SNP <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/universal-basic-income-snp-scotland-independent-conference-vote-a6931846.html">voted in favour</a> of a motion supporting it at their spring conference. </p>
<p>Together with UK-level encouragement via discussion events from society organisation <a href="https://www.thersa.org/events/fellowship-events/2016/5/rsa-scotland-angus-millar-lecture-2016---17-may">RSA</a> and a policy paper from left-wing group <a href="http://www.compassonline.org.uk/publications/universal-basic-income-an-idea-whose-time-has-come/">Compass</a>, this galvanised supporters to lobby Scottish councils to trial it locally as one way of improving poverty and inequality. </p>
<p>Fife is now launching a feasibility study early in 2017 which looks likely to follow other models and concentrate on a specific poorer area within the population of 365,000. Glasgow’s council, population nearly 600,000, has expressed its interest in the basic income’s potential for improving poverty levels in the city and Labour councillor Matt Kerr is to begin researching and designing a trial. </p>
<p><strong>Poverty in the UK, millions</strong></p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149102/original/image-20161207-18032-1bv7en4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149102/original/image-20161207-18032-1bv7en4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149102/original/image-20161207-18032-1bv7en4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149102/original/image-20161207-18032-1bv7en4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149102/original/image-20161207-18032-1bv7en4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149102/original/image-20161207-18032-1bv7en4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149102/original/image-20161207-18032-1bv7en4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149102/original/image-20161207-18032-1bv7en4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Institute of Fiscal Studies</span></span>
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<p>On the question of what level of income would be reasonable, I have suggested between £700 and £1,000 per month. Annie Miller of Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland <a href="http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0044/00441818.pdf">has suggested</a> it should be half the average income level, <a href="http://www.parliament.scot/ResearchBriefingsAndFactsheets/S4/SB_15-82_Earnings_in_Scotland_2015.pdf">meaning</a> £1,154/month, funded by a flat rate of income tax of 40%. (The basic income itself would be tax-exempt.) </p>
<h2>Pros and cons</h2>
<p>The idea of a basic income has attracted support over the years from across the political spectrum, including on the Right from the likes of <a href="http://www.fljs.org/files/publications/Murray.pdf">Charles Murray</a> and <a href="https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/why-did-hayek-support-basic-income">Friedrich Hayek</a>. It is by no means universally accepted, however – <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36454060">Switzerland</a> held a referendum on introducing it nationwide earlier this year and it was decisively rejected. </p>
<p>Opponents worry about costs, for example, with one report <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21699907-proponents-basic-income-underestimate-how-disruptive-it-would-be-basically-flawed">suggesting that</a> replacing the American welfare system with a basic income would add about ten percentage points to the tax take as a proportion of GDP if you gave everyone a mere US$10,000 a year (£8,100, or £675 a month). Opponents also worry idleness <a href="https://tifwe.org/universal-basic-income-biblical-view-of-work/">would become</a> more widespread, that you would <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-benefits-and-drawbacks-of-basic-income-guarantee">further entrench</a> state dependency and that any rich countries trying it would have to close their borders to prevent a huge influx of inward migration. </p>
<p>The costings argument is <a href="https://www.equities.com/news/money-for-nothing-and-your-checks-for-free-why-the-basic-income-makes-more-sense-than-you-think">far from clear cut</a>, however. It ignores the substantial economic stimulus from the increase in government spending, as well as the savings from better public health, lower crime and so forth. The huge cost of implementing the means-tested benefits system has also helped make the simplicity of the basic income <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1eOVU61mZE">seem</a> much more attractive. As for the immigration issue, this could <a href="http://basicincome.org/news/2014/08/jesse-spafford-reconciling-basic-income-and-immigration/">be tackled</a> by graduating the basic income for new arrivals and everyone else over 18 to start with a lower payment that rose towards a maximum over a number of years. </p>
<p>Opponents also ignore the very real positive examples of poverty eradication and citizen empowerment from trials such as <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/12/23/mincome-in-dauphin-manitoba_n_6335682.html">one in Canada</a> in the 1970s. That experiment in Manitoba province also showed that health and well-being indicators improved for recipients, while hospitalisations and mental health diagnoses fell. </p>
<p>Professor Guy Standing of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, one of the leading proponents of a basic income, used the launch of Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland in November to outline how the results from an experiment in Pradesh, India had been stronger than anticipated. </p>
<p>The experiment saw people in a number of villages receiving a basic income for 18 months, including children (paid to a parent or guardian). The only social group doing less paid work than before was the children, while work rates increased for all other segments of the population – hardly widespread idleness. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, women and girls had become financially independent and were enjoying better health, which will be particularly interesting to feminist economists. (We at GCU are <a href="http://www.gcu.ac.uk/wise/aboutus/meettheteam/researchstudents/">currently looking</a> at how a basic income could improve the economic prospects of women from ethnic minorities and disabled women.) </p>
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<p>So while it might be some time before we see countries adopting the basic income across the board, there does appear to be a strong case to be made for it. The next few years should produce considerably more data about how it works in practice – hopefully Fife and Glasgow included. When it comes to ideas moving from the fringes to the political mainstream, this is one that is making the journey.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Broadhurst is affiliated to the Women in Scotland's Economy (WiSE) Research Centre at GCU, a member of the Scottish Women's Budget Group and a member of the Scottish Green Party</span></em></p>Scotland is the latest place to look at piloting the concept.Jennifer Broadhurst, Pre-doctoral Researcher, Feminist Economics, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54582012-02-22T02:58:41Z2012-02-22T02:58:41ZMore than just money: differing morals at the heart of US economic divide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/7913/original/657qbzmk-1329804591.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amid an ongoing economic crisis, American exceptionalism faces the ultimate test.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Herbert Hoover was wrong about America. During a press conference in February 1931 - amid the depths of the Great Depression - he famously warned that the American values of “rugged individualism” risked being diluted by “European-styled socialism”. </p>
<p>Hoover suggested that the Depression presented a dilemma as to “whether the American people, on one hand, will maintain the spirit of charity and mutual self-help through voluntary giving and the responsibility of local government, as distinguished on the other hand, from appropriations out of the Federal Treasury for such purposes”. </p>
<p>In short, his fear was that too much federal involvement would weaken the bonds of local connection and civil society, displacing religious and charitable organisations and undermining American ideals. </p>
<p>Hoover was wrong because – as Franklin Roosevelt showed in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal">New Deal</a> – American values were not exclusively individualist. Instead, they also contained an important egalitarian, if not communitarian, commitment to fairness. </p>
<p>In recent weeks, Hoover’s arguments have been resuscitated by conservative intellectual [Charles Murray](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(author). In a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/opinion/sunday/douthat-can-the-working-class-be-saved.html">widely</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/opinion/krugman-money-and-morals.html">commented-upon</a> new book, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/book/119020/coming-apart-by-charles-murray">Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010</a>, Murray advances the thesis that a decline in basic individual values – most importantly, of industriousness – explains an erosion of social mobility and America’s exceptionalist identity. </p>
<p>To be sure, in describing the fragmented nature of American society, there is much to commend in Murray’s account. He describes a society in which elites and the general public have equally withdrawn from community engagement. However, his view is fundamentally flawed as he emphasises the pervasive effects of excessive statism to explain societal trends over a period in which the state has been in more or less continual retreat from its postwar peak of influence. </p>
<p>Indeed, that his argument kicks off in November 1963, with the premature end of the Kennedy administration, is somewhat telling, as it was Kennedy who – as Ronald Reagan later stressed – inaugurated the current trend to cutting taxes.</p>
<p>To be sure, no single variable explains the social, economic and demographic shifts that have characterised the past half-century. Yet a lack of individualism is not the problem. Murray would have seen this, had he offered a more encompassing view. Contrary to free-market nostrums, post-Depression era America was marked by the extensive use of wage and price controls, which derived considerable popular legitimacy from a commitment to fairness. </p>
<p>Indeed, Republican President Eisenhower advanced a doctrine of “shared responsibility” for economic stability. Such appeals in turn succeeded only by virtue of the existence of a postwar trust in government: in 1958, 73% of Americans stated that they could trust the government either “just about always” or “most of the time”. Moreover, this trust was paralleled by a mass scepticism in markets, as only 14% of Americans blamed government for economic instability. </p>
<p>What explains the demise of these controls, and the broader sense of fairness upon which they relied? Over the 1960s and 1970s, the experiences of Vietnam and Watergate would undermine faith in government, giving rise to a much more libertarian ethos. By 1978, only 25% of Americans would assert that they could trust the government “just about always” or “most of the time” by 1980. Paralleling these general shifts, the percent of the public blaming government for inflation would rise from 14% in 1959 to 51% in 1978. </p>
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<p>As scepticism in government assumed the force of a self-fulfilling prophecy, successive inflationary crises – in the “great stagflations” of the 1970s – and financial crises – from the savings and loan crises of the late 1980s to the global financial crisis of recent years – wracked the US economy. Yet with each crisis, the wave of deregulation has been advanced in tandem. </p>
<p>In this light, Murray may be underrating the importance of a communitarian ethos, as his Tea Party-styled libertarian values might be juxtaposed against the Occupy Wall Street-styled view on display in say, the revived communitarianism of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren">Elizabeth Warren</a>. </p>
<p>In a widely-circulated clip, Warren recently asserted the case for an alternative view of American exceptionalism, arguing that “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate … God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/5458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wesley Widmaier receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Herbert Hoover was wrong about America. During a press conference in February 1931 - amid the depths of the Great Depression - he famously warned that the American values of “rugged individualism” risked…Wesley Widmaier, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.