I just got back from an interesting conference in Newcastle (UK) organised by the Institute for Public Policy Research, and presided over by Matthew Taylor as his last big act before going to direct policy at number 10. (Actually I got back a week ago, but pressures of work and technical set-backs have kept me silent till now). Basically it was a ‘looking for a new big idea’ kind of gathering for New Labourish types – IPPR had asked a bunch of academics to present their thoughts and findings about meritocracy, social mobility, and equality of opportunity, and a bunch of politicians, policy makers, and representatives of domestic NGOs to engage with them. I confess that I anticipated a kind of dialogue of the deaf, but it wasn’t like that at all. The academics (including John Goldthorpe, John Roemer, Stephen Machin, Adam Swift, Michael Hout) made brief, pertinent, and not-dumbed-down presentations; and the in-session and out-of session discussions were to the point and thoughtful. Gordon Brown gave a talk on the first afternoon with which I, very much not a New Labour person, was very impressed. He seemed not only to have a coherent, worked out view, and a straightforward comfortableness with the language and concerns of traditional social democracy, but also to have read and understood all of the preparatory readings. (Apparently he called up John Goldthorpe the previous Thursday to ask him about some of the technical points in Goldthorpe’s paper). My brief was to respond to the minister for school standards, David Miliband’s, speech on why the government is focussing its attention on teaching and learning more than on admissions and funding. Again, I was impressed by the thoughtfulness and reasonableness of his presentation, and the care with which he distinguished issues of what should ideally be done and what is feasible given political and constitutional constraints; though, fortunately, disagreed with enough to make it worth debating him. One large disagreement among the attendees was the extent to which a society should try to reward ‘merit’ financially. Again, though, whereas I’d assumed on going in that I’d be in a minority with Swift and Roemer against meritocracy, it was striking how soft the support for meritocracy was in all the discussions, and how well disposed Brown was, for example, to prioritizing the interests of the least advantaged.
Cynics will dismiss my impressions as the consequences of either being over-susceptible to politicians charm, or (more likely) jet lag, and in another couple of weeks I’m sure I shall relapse into my own negativity. But the fact remains (as Americans I’ve described the conference to keep saying) that such a conference, in which senior elected politicians discuss the work of serious left-wing academics on their own terms, in the presence of senior policy-makers, is utterly unimaginable in the US.
All the papers for the conference, by the way, are accessible here at Ippr.
Sigh, makes me almost nostalgic for London…
A friend who works in the Treasury tells me that Gordon Brown can hoover up a 20 page brief in minutes, and address the single toughest and most pertinent question to its writer there and then.
Provocative counter: By definition, US left-wing academics are not serious, and thus there’s no need for serious policy makers to address them on their own terms.
Thoughts?
Is it really “uttey unimaginable” that Larry Summers (or, to choose another administration, Condi Rice) could and would be able “to discuss the work of … serious accademics on their own terms”? They have both done pretty in the world of serious accademics. Rice might prefer center- or right-wing accademics, but that’s to be expected from a center-right politician.
Neither is an elected politician, but they are/were the functional equivalent of the attendees at your conference.
In fact, the US system, where cabinet (and, equally important, sub-cabinet) officials need not be elected politicians, brings many more accademics into government.
Yes, there have been plenty of academics in the U.S. Cabinets — the current president of Harvard was a Labor secretary under Clinton.
However, I don’t know if these people spend much time with other academics once they receive high government posts. It seems like they then must become more oriented toward the political speech defending X policy, even if it wouldn’t be considered sound by their former ivory tower peers.
Coming to one of my interests, it appears that the Brits — and perhaps most other nations generally — understand the rewarding of merit to be a policy tool rather than a matter of morality.
Makes for an interestingly different starting place in any tax discussion; in the U.S. one always has to contend with those convinced that taxation beyond a certain (and often arbitrary) point like 33% (for GWB) or 50% (for most people) is somehow wicked and immoral.
The president of Harvard wasn’t Labor secretary under Clinton. You’re thinking of Robert Reich, who is not president of Harvard. That’s Laurence Summers, who was I believe an Undersecretary in the Clinton Treasury Department. Kind of the other side of the road from the Labor Department, as Reich makes clear in his book ‘Locked in the Cabinet’.
“That’s Laurence Summers, who was I believe an Undersecretary in the Clinton Treasury Department.”
Summers was Secretary of the Treasury.
You are both right. Summers was undersecretary of treasury for international affairs, then deputy secretary, and finally secretary (when Rubin left)
Before that, he was on the faculty of first MIT and then Harvard. He also continued to write accademic papers while at the Treasury.
Condoleezza Rice, who is the National Security Advisor in Bush’s cabinet, was first a professor, and then provost of Stanford University.
Attorneys General are regularly taken from amongst the ranks of law professors.
Of course, with a full time job running a department, these former accademics don’t spend as much time with thier former collegues; but then again, neither do British cabinet members. If anything, I would expect an accademic (or, for that matter, someone from business — another group represented in US cabinet posts) especially one who will likely return to the accademy, to be much less political than a career politican in a similar post.
I am not sure what Harry and the other conference attendee think is utterly unimaginable. If they are talking about left-wing ideas being considered by the Bush administration, then of course he is right, but that is the norm for politics. If they think that US cabinet and sub-cabinet members can’t and don’t talk to ‘accademics on their own terms’, then their imagination seems to be lacking.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review