Thinking Big for a Visionary Future

By Robert Bernstein – 4 September 2011

 

Once there was a US President at a time of great economic hardship. He was well-traveled, had witnessed much hardship and had compassion for those in need. He had a revolutionary new idea: That government could directly put people to work building useful projects.

 

Who was this president? No. It was Herbert Hoover. So, why do we laud FDR and curse Hoover? Because FDR did it on a scale that actually got the job done: Putting people back to work building projects that we still use 70 years later.

 

Back in June 2009 Harpers ran an article explaining how Obama is recapitulating Hoover’s failed legacy: Doing just enough government intervention to anger the anti-government crowd. But not doing enough to get the job done.

 

FDR did not just lead with his big visionary plans. FDR challenged the people to “make me do it” and the people rallied by the hundreds of thousands in the streets to support his visionary plans.

 

Today, neither the people nor the president seem to think big in this way. Where did things go wrong?

 

A hundred years ago the Progressive Movement had big, visionary ideas. Technology was seen as the hope of the future. President Theodore Roosevelt pioneered many of these ideas in government. It was also a time of great technical progress and innovation, starting with the Wright Brothers’ aviation successes.

 

Technology was seen as increasing productivity, allowing working people to work less and dramatically increase standards of living. A 30-hour workweek was passed by Congress, only to be scuttled when the US entered World War II.

 

These ideas of progress continued for decades, being re-invigorated by the Space Program in the 1960s. Young people had big dreams that if they studied science and worked hard they could be a part of exploring a world of wonders that was just being discovered.

 

“Star Trek” offered an expansion of these ideas, combining the sense of scientific wonder and exploration with the revolutionary social ideas of the era: Prosperity, dignity and equal opportunity for everyone.

 

But then came the assassinations of the Kennedys and King. And Nixon’s deceptions and the bigger sense that government was lying and conspiring to support dictators abroad and repression in the US.

 

Then came Reagan who told us that government cannot serve the people and he set about proving it. Movies and television no longer presented the optimistic vision of Star Trek’s future. They presented a dystopia of crime, famines and wars over declining resources. The up-beat, mind-expanding music of the 1960s was replaced with sarcasm, cynicism and rage. Optimism was just not cool.

 

The downer views came from across the political spectrum. While left and right hated government for different reasons, the environmental movement in many ways challenged the very idea of progress. Better living through chemistry brought a poisoned environment and new diseases and cancers to humans.

 

The wide-eyed sense that all races and ethnic groups were coming together was replaced with the sad reality: The schools of the year 2000 were just as segregated as the schools of 1950 before court-ordered integration.

 

So, what do we do? I would argue that we need to redouble our efforts to revive big, visionary thinking. We are living in a time of great opportunity that currently is being squandered. Tens of millions of Americans are out of work. Is there no work to be done? Is everything in the world just as we want it? Is there nothing left to explore, to discover, to build?

 

The 1939 New York World’s Fair brought a vision of the future of transportation: Freeways with fast cars, giving people the freedom to “see the USA in your Chevrolet” as the slogan later was coined. That did not work out exactly as planned, with the resulting suburban sprawl, traffic jams, millions injured each year and depleted resources. It was time for a newer, better vision.

 

The civilized world was building high-speed rail systems fifty years ago. If the US starts today, we are just fifty years behind. If we wait until next year, we are fifty-one years behind.

 

When I was a child, we were supposed to hate President Johnson for his escalation of the US war in Vietnam. “Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” But I would take an LBJ over a Clinton or an Obama any day. LBJ gave us Medicare, Civil Rights legislation and much of the exciting times of the Space Program. He was corrupt and did terrible things. But there was a net positive legacy. He had big ideas and we benefit from his achievements today.

 

When was the last time people rallied in the streets FOR something? A hundred years ago, millions marched for a shorter work week and won. For the past 40 years, people will rally and march to protest against some war or other atrocity. But not FOR a big idea.

 

Progress can happen on many different fronts. Each can feed the other. Obviously, leaders can lead. But books, movies and television can offer imagined futures that are better than the current world. Perhaps we are long overdue for another visionary World’s Fair.

 

Ordinary people can decide to think about the kind of world they want to live in. Every time you are tempted to complain about a corporate or government failure, think instead about what you want to see them doing instead.

 

Instead of reacting to the latest crisis in the news, take out a blank sheet of paper and write down your own ideas of what you want to see us spending our collective resources on. Buying things at the mall does not have to be our entire economy. Together we can do great things that no amount of personal spending can do.

 

Think of the Hubble Space Telescope that is nearing the end of its life. Who has not marveled at the cosmic views it has given us? How much more could we do on that scale if we ask for it?

 

Think of the billions spent each year on the for-profit pharmaceutical industry and how little we get in return. Why can’t we use public money, government money, to fund research for the most effective treatments, rather than the most profitable treatments?

 

Perhaps we can go beyond “treatments” to actual enhancements of life? The drug culture of the 1960s led to some terrible consequences of addiction and lost lives. But there was a positive vision that should be cultivated: The idea of mind-expansion and new dimensions of experience.

 

When I was a young child I asked my mother what was the point of life: Just eating, pooping, and making more babies who grow up to do the same? I hoped there was something more.

 

Today, millions of Americans seek meaning in a return to discarded beliefs in sky gods, ancient texts and mythologies. But others have come to realize that we create meaning through our interactions, our visions, our explorations and our achievements.

 

Today, millions of Americans have demanded that in a time of economic hardship, we need to “cut back” and reduce the size of government. But others have come to realize that a time of economic hardship is a time of opportunity: An opportunity for us to think of big, visionary projects for the tens of millions of idled workers to create. And that means pooling our money collectively through government.

 

One key idea is important: There is a difference between a debt and an investment. If you borrow money for a fancy car or for a big party, that is a debt. But if you borrow money for a new business, for your education or to travel to an important convention, those can be investments in your future.

 

When individuals are hard-pressed to invest, that is exactly the time for government to invest. That will happen if we dream big. If we organize with others to develop these big dreams. If we ask government to invest in these big dreams to put people to work building them. The return on the investment is not just that people are working and “stimulating the economy”. The return on the investment is an enriched, more meaningful, more sustainable world.