In this telling, there’s something insidious about asking if they don’t do something better someplace else. But of course another way of looking at it is that you by definition can’t find examples of alternatives to the US status quo by looking at the US. That’s why you regularly see the Cato Institute touting Chile’s pension system or Heritage extolling the virtues of Sweden’s K-12 education or David Frum talking up French nuclear power. After all, we’ve never attempted to shift from a guaranteed pay-as-you-go pension system to a mandatory savings one in the United States. Nor do we have any examples of widespread operation of public elementary schools by for-profit firms. Nor do we have a robust nuclear power sector. So if you want to explore these ideas—ideas that conservatives often do want to explore—you need to look at models from abroad.
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3 hours ago
This is a pretty weak. It's not hard to make the argument that the difference between the sides is that the liberal side advocate mirroring the philosophical make-up of European Social Democracy, with a huge shift in govermental power over the populace (ie a philosophical argument);
ReplyDeletewhile the conservative side is merely taking non-philosophical, specific policy notions.
They're only similar superficially. Though Yglesias has a penchant for those kinds of arguments.
I don't agree, Esquire. It's just as plausible conservatives routinely point to other countries' policies precisely because they like their underlying ideology. I think you let your side off too easily.
ReplyDeleteBut that's not the point. Ponnuru/Lowry seemed to argue that even looking at other countries for policy guidance was somehow beneath America, since it's exceptionalism renders all comparisons mute. Yglesias merely noted that if that's the case, then we can forget all the lecturing about Chile's awesome pension system, which apparently Friedman et al. inspired in the 1980s.
(And speaking of Chile, did you know the current president -- Michelle Bachelet -- was tortured by the military government the Americans supported? Incidental point.)
Besides, the Europe v. America divide seems a bit forced at times. Yes, there are clear and important distinctions, but many countries have systems that aren't about more government regulation (Manzi mentioned Netherlands and Sweden, I think, in his discussion about education). I think conservatives could find much to like about Britain's detention policy, which allows the government to detain people for a certain amount of time without arresting them first.
I think what's of import about Chile is that much of their public system has roots in the influence in American policy and American schools. Their system isn't exactly spurred from the seeds of philosophical "Chileanism."
ReplyDeleteI actually did know that about Bachelet. Pretty interesting figure. (I think her father was murdered by the regime as well). If you want to be technical about it, she was also tortured by the government that the US actively opposed. Nixon era US was a supporter of Pinochet. Reagan era US was what supported/worked openly with the resistence to eventually undermined the regime. (I think we've disagreed about this history before).
One of my closest mentors and friends is an American priest who is a pretty well known figure down there. His position while there was clerical/administrative in a high profile position of influence that gave him a podium from which to levy constant criticism of the Pinochet regime and organize resistance. (He was there in the mid/late 80s up to the regime collapse).
Anyway, I mention this because my friend was actually selected for the position in part because of his familial ties with a very high level American government official. As I understand, both the church and the US government saw it as part of their efforts to undermine Pinochet. I thought it was an smart foreign policy move.