Staying ahead of the news cycle is more a matter of effort than knowledge. (That's why we're so bad at it here at Benzene.) The news media follows patterns that are often predictable, and people who seek to take advantage of those patterns often leave their intentions uncloaked. Staying ahead of tomorrow's news isn't about being a brilliant speculator. It's about doing your homework and getting your own stories prepared in time.

Last week I started to post about Jim Webb, but I got distracted and never got to the point. If I want to be timely about making that point, I need to hurry up, because Webb will be back in the headlines early next week. I know this not because I'm prescient, but because the other day I happened to see the press release about his schedule. He was the lead guest on Meet the Press this morning, and he's booked all over the cable news shows tomorrow and Tuesday. Obviously he's got something he wants to push into the headlines.

If I had thought it through, I'd have figured out what that something is, but I didn't. Instead I watched Meet the Press this morning, something I almost never do. Unlike Bill Richardson and Evan Bayh, Jim Webb doesn't want to be vice-president. Predictably, Russert brought up the question, and Webb rejected it about as forcefully as one can short of a Shermanesque refusal (which Russert also tried to draw out of him). No, Webb is pushing his GI bill. They have the votes to pass it, but the president is threatening to veto. Webb is going to try to scare up enough public pressure to either change the president's mind or sway enough votes to congressional votes to override the veto. Short of that, he'll at least make it an issue to use against the Republicans in the upcoming election season. Some Democrats may even prefer that, but my sense is that Webb would rather get the bill passed.

I'm far behind the times. The point I wanted to make about Jim Webb is actually two years old now. What interests me is this editorial he wrote back in 2006, shortly after he won his Senate race. His topic is increasing economic inequality over the past 25 years in America. To those who have been paying attention, the information isn't anything that we didn't already know, such as

and

What is different is who wrote it and where it was published. The who we've already discussed. Jim Webb is a former Republican who served in the Reagan administration. More precisely, his family background is that of lower-middle-class, pro-military Reagan Democrats who switched party allegiance after the Vietnam War when the Democratic Party was perceived as not just anti-war but anti-military. Webb now wants to lead this same group to switch back on similar grounds. He believes the Republican Party has misunderstood and betrayed the military in an effort to use it for political gain. That's one of the key arguments in his latest book, and it's a top talking point on his media tour for the GI Bill.

Even more interesting to me is the where. It's no accident that Webb had his 2006 editorial published in the Wall Street Journal. If it were the New York Times or Washington Post, you might expect a freshman Democrat to try to stir up the vast center-left about class inequality, but this time Webb isn't speaking to them. His argument is addressed directly to the wealthy, and that's what intrigues me.

Personally I'm ambivalent on questions of wealth distribution (or "leveling" as they called it in Jefferson's day). It's been on my mind this year because Obama is much more of a leveler than the sort of Democrat I typically support. Although I'm not dogmatic about it, I'm more or less a "free-market" Democrat. I'm always wary of government programs that pervert market incentives. I tend to dislike programs designed to save this industry or those jobs which are in danger, because I'm conscious of the large cost to the overall economy that comes from binding the invisible hand. Blatant tampering like price controls or monopoly promotion I dislike even more. If the government is going to intervene in the market, I want it to be done in a way that neutralizes externalities whereby the cost of a decision is borne by someone other than who makes the decision and profits from it, as opposed to the bureaucracy determining an economic course directing businesses and using carrots or sticks to herd everyone onto that course.

Undisguised redistribution of wealth offends me less than when it's hidden in industrial policy or social programs. If our goal is truly to take money from the rich and give it to the poor, then let's be efficient and do it openly and transparently. Of course, lack of transparency is exactly why politicians have traditionally gone for the indirect route. When it's transparent you have to make the case for what you're doing. Is there value in having the government play Robin Hood? If that's what we're doing, then that's what we need to debate openly.

The great flaw of pure democracy is that it can be a tool for any majority to take from any minority. But anytime a larger "us" is pitted against a smaller "them" it wears on the social fabric. This is why Webb's editorial intrigues me. As the facts show, economic inequality is way up. If you think that's a bad thing (and I do), there are two ways to address the question rhetorically. One is to complain that "they" (the privileged minority) are getting all the goods and "we" (the not-privileged majority) aren't, so that's not fair. That's a legitimate complaint, but it begs the question: Suppose your fairy godmother waves her wand and suddenly you're one of the privileged: Do you still care about inequality? Or is the problem now solved because now you've got yours? If that's all there is to it, then it stands to reason that the haves would be defenders of inequality. And if it's just haves against have-nots then it really is class warfare.

The more difficult alternative is to make the case that systematic economic inequality is bad for the entire society, regardless of whether you yourself happen to be wealthy. This is what I sense Webb is getting at.

No man is an island. There's a reason why you're better off being rich in America than you are being equally rich in, say, Nigeria. There is value in living in a country where there is a robust amount of social cohesion and the variation in wealth is continuous enough that most individuals at every level feel like they are part of the same people. A certain amount of inequality can be a good thing, or at least a by-product of a good system, but there is a point at which the costs outweigh the benefits, even to the wealthy. Webb has suggested we're approaching that point, and that's what the debate ought to be about.

I'd really like to see Obama embrace this approach. Obama likes to work from a position of unity, and his rhetoric is filled with the idea of representing all of America. I want to see him address wealth inequality, but when he does, I hope he won't be satisfied with an us-vs-them argument. I hope he'll follow Webb's example and make the case why it's good for the entire country. And if he can't make that case, then he should question the policy.

A while back Andrew Sullivan mused aloud on the difference between his blog posts and his proper articles. They're two different media, he said; the blog is for short and quick bits, and the articles are longer and better thought-out. I object to the implication that it is part of the definition of blogginess that posts be short and frequent, but I take his point about some being better thought-out than others.

I know this isn't the clearest prose I've ever written, but I also know that I'm still wrapping my brain around it. It's going to take me three or four tries before I figure out what I really mean to say, and I'll never get to the third or fourth attempt if I don't make the first one.

11:35:48 PM  [permalink]  comment []