Customer Reviews

The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics

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Those who have bought "The Cultural Creatives" by Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson, or "IMAGINE: What America Could be in the 21st Century", will not only be thrilled by this book, they will understand that the "citizen-centered" system of governance is finally achievable and imminent--we should all try to buy, read, discuss and relate this book to the Congressional elections in 2002 and the Presidential election in 2004.

This book is *loaded* with common sense. It is absolutely not a political spin manual, a manifesto for revolution, or a ponderous think tank "blue sky" prescription for curing all the ills of the world. This book has three simple focal points and they are powerful:

1) More Americans identify themselves as Independents than as either Republicans or Democrats, and the way is open for a new "radical centrist" choice of leadership;

2) The original social contract that placed highly educated experts in charge of everything (government, corporations, even non-profits), taking care of the largely ignorant masses, is *history*. The people are smart, the people are connected, and the people want *choices* rather than ideologically-contrived menus.

3) Young adults are the key to the future and will decide the next few major elections, but only (a huge caveat) if leaders of vision and charisma can come forth with truthful options grounded in reality--the authors are carefully critical of political "triangulation" that seeks to manufacture false representations of common interest, only to betray those the moment after election.

The bottom line in this book is that the artificial trade-offs imposed on the people by menu- and elite-driven party politics are no longer acceptable nor enforceable, and the opportunity now presents itself for the voting public to remake the government from the outside in.

They focus on the core segments and core values that make America great: the market with its liberty; the state with its equality of opportunity; and the community (including religions) with its solidarity and nurturing of civic virtues.

Among the core negatives they identify where citizens could and should be free to choose rather than accept imposed combinations, are:

1) Elections tied to rigid political parties that have veto rights over candidates, and selections that allow minority winners where more than two candidates split the majority vote.

2) Pension and health care programs tied to organizations rather than individuals--trapping individuals and constraining innovation.

3) Educational systems tied to mass conformity rather than individual customization--with gross inequalities across counties and states because property taxes fund education, rather than a national normalized program with equal investments for every child.

4) Tax systems tied to loopholes, patronage, and earnings, rather than to consumption and savings (tax breaks for savings).

5) Immigration policies tied to old needs for low-skilled labor instead of new needs for high-skilled labor and the protection of the nation from dilution, disease, and excess demands on our tax-payer funded safety nets.

There are many other gems in this well-written and self-effacing book. The authors come across as very sensible, very devoted to America and its values, and very much ahead of the curve.

They conclude that major renovations of our society usually result from a combination of three factors: an external shock to the system; the emergence of new political alliances, and the availability of compelling new ideas for social reform.

They specifically note that an obstacle to innovation is the lack of a well-formed political worldview among both the new generation of young voters, and the new elites (most of whom have eschewed politics).

While they say that realignments are not excepted in the next presidential or congressional cycle, but rather over the next ten to twenty five years, I believe they underestimate the power of the Internet and self-organizing groups such as represented by the Cultural Creatives.

I hope the authors consider launching a "Journal of Citizen Governance" and a web-site where citizens' can self-organize, because unlike the cultural creatives and the imaginative individuals who focus in niche areas, these two authors have finally "cracked the code" in a common sense manner that anyone can understand and anyone can act upon.

This is a unique and seminal work that could influence the future of national, state, and local politics, and hence the future of the Nation. This is *very* well done.

This book is a quick read but still offers up many thought-provoking discussions covering a wide range of issues facing America today. What I enjoy most about the book is that it objectively confronts many issues (like Social Security) that would be considered untouchable by current politicians. Their ideas are refreshing and definitely not a regurgitation of old-school thinking.

Although I would agree with some of the other reviewers in the respect that the authors tend to throw out some statements without backing them up, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in domestic policy and the future of American politics.

The meat of this book is not so much the specific proposals that the authors offer. Instead, the real point of this book is: Our nation has undergone three revolutionary transformations -- from colony to independence (1770's to Civil War), from agrarian to early industrial (Civil War to 1930's), and from early industrial to full industrial (Depression to 1970's). We are now in the throes of a fourth revolution. Unlike the previous three revolutions, our political system is not up to the challenge because our two parties, who have a stranglehold on the levers of power, are each controlled by the most extreme elements within their parties -- at a time when we need consensus and cooperation, not extremes. You may disagree with their specific proposals, you cannot disagree with their analysis of the situation.

Here's my recommendation: Buy TWO copies of this book. Keep one, pass one on to someone you know who is in a position of power and influence -- senator, representative, newspaper editor, state legislator, and the like.

Ted Halstead is one of the all to rare voices representing the next generation of politcal thought in America. Halsted., a baby buster, finds himself equally disgusted by the politics of both political parties and their extreme political bases.

Radical Center is an apt term because the proposals he offers are far from the mundane centrist politics that have been incapable of sustaining a true political movement (ex. Perot's Reform Party). His ideas marry some of the most salient and relevant ideas from both ends of the political spectrum namely the left's belief that government should provide a safety net to those who are most in need and the right's commitment to market forces; particulary people's desire to exercise choice in healthcare, retirement and education.

My only concern is that he does not offer inspiring words or practical strategies for how his agenda can take hold in a political landscape that is and will continue to be dominated by the aging baby boomer generation and their increasing reliance on Medicare, Social Security and the other programs from the New Deal and the Great Society.

Halstead and Lind have done a fantastic job of setting out a centrist manifesto for the new century. This book is recommended reading for anyone in politics who wants to understand the ideas that can be used to build new coalitions.

Keep an eye on these two and The New America Foundation. They're writing about the things that everyone else will be discussing in ten years.

"Suppose that, like many Americans, you believe in reproductive choice as well as school choice...[when you vote Republican or Democrat, you] must confront the uncomfortable dilemma of choosing one at the expense of the other."

The authors provide this concise statement of the problem on p.4 of "The Radical Center." Then, they never explain how to get out of the bind. In fact, they never mention the abortion issue again. Instead, they offer some additional proposals for a centrist candidate, many of which make sense.

For example, they suggest raising the retirement age for social security. As I have argued elsewhere, raising the retirement age is in fact the only meaningful policy option available to deal with the demographic realities--the "plans" put forward by the two major parties are both bogus.

I also like the authors' proposal to abolish racial classifications. I call this the "one-race" doctrine: declare that we all belong to one race, the human race.

Overall, the book reads like a quixotic attempt to convince Democrats to adopt an agenda on Social Security, education, taxes, and race that is somewhat to the right of the platform that George Bush ran on in the year 2000. There is no "radical center" position on abortion, so I can only infer that the authors are pro-choice (otherwise, they would be Republicans).

But the authors never provide a solution to the problem that they pose in the quotation above. How can those of us who are pro-choice on abortion but tired of the industrial-era Democratic policies on other issues find candidates that we can support?

The Radical Center is very informative covering a very wide range of issues in current U.S. politics and putting them together in a thoughtful way and making creative proposals. It's refreshingly not dogmatic, postive and open-minded. I would highly recommend the book to any serious student of American policy today. It's an easy read. My criticism would be that the authors were too loose with their language at times leaving the reader to wonder whether (1) the authors had their facts wrong or (2) didn't recognize the implications of their words or (3) perhaps I was misinformed. For example, they state that the Demoncratic Party has been captured by its more extreme elements. But Clinton/Gore moved the Democratic Party decisively toward the center.

From what I can tell by the reviews on this page, all the proposals in this book are basically libertarian. It is thus highly misleading that the book calls itself centrist. The fact that only one person on this page has realized this, yet seems to think it's a good thing, is also rather disturbing.

The book seems like a thinly veiled attempt to move political dialogue rightward by making radical neoconservative proposals--many of which the Bush administration clearly supports--seem moderate.

Let's call a spade a spade.

I don't know if the authors acknowledge this or not, but Bill McDonald first coined "radical center" as a way to describe the growing movement toward building cooperation and consensus in terms of resouce managment in the west. Bill is co-founder of the Malpai Borderlands Group and a MacArthur Genius Grant Recipient. He has been using this term, as are many rural communities (specifically western), for at least 5 years now. As one of the authors is described as a writer for the New Yorker, a magazine that has shown remarkably little interest in the viewpoints of working class western people, let alone its intellectuals, such as Dan Kemmis, I do hope the authors found their way to the origins of the expression. . . .