Creating a Just and Inclusive America

| MARCH 2015 | CSD PERSPECTIVE 15-24 | Creating a Just and Inclusive America By Xavier Briggs Adapted from an address given at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, January 22, 2015, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Center for Social Development. Thank you very much, everyone. It’s great to be much of higher education as we know it, community here with you. I want to thank the university, and in development, Head Start, public interest law, and particular the Center for Social Development and the other fields. From building fields to nurturing social School of Law, for the invitation to give this lecture movements such as civil rights, the environmental today. Special thanks to Michael Sherraden and Karen movement, the women’s movement, the LGBT Tokarz for inviting me and for helping me think about movement, and many lesser known, even taken-for- how best to contribute to this very special series here granted innovations. For example, the neighborhood as on campus. a planning concept, as a supportive building block of The Ford Foundation has long supported work by urban life—that concept was incubated by a foundation Michael and the center to help define, measure, and in the 1920s and rapidly disseminated across the grow the field of asset building—and to advance the country and even around the globe. premise that people of all backgrounds should have I say all this to underscore, at the outset, that working the opportunity to build wealth and reap the benefits in philanthropy is a great privilege, and from our that come from having a financial cushion to deploy for perspective at Ford, a privilege that comes with great themselves and their families. It’s a key element of any responsibility: first, to stand unequivocally for social inclusive, opportunity-rich society. And given our long justice, and second, to push ourselves to see around association with the important work led here at this the bend and support the people and institutions, university, it’s a special treat for me to be here and around the world, that can both imagine a better be in conversation with all of you about how we can future and help bring it into being. create a more just and inclusive America. But we’re not the only privileged institutions. I’m not going to focus on the role of philanthropy, Universities are also privileged, particularly great though I’ll offer the perspective of someone who is universities like this one. They help to lead fields, thinking hard—and learning day by day—about how conduct groundbreaking research, and redefine philanthropy can best contribute, working with many education as we know it. different partners and many approaches to social For all these reasons, I want to recognize the change. Many years ago, Paul Ylvisaker, a program important step taken by this university to expand officer at the Ford Foundation, famously quipped that financial support for students in need and to enrich philanthropy is society’s “passing gear.” Something that the economic diversity of the students who can get an accelerates progress—or has the potential to accelerate education here. I’m a scholarship kid, and I was raised progress. by a single mom who had to leave high school, in the And philanthropy has been a part of America’s adaptive 1940s, to help support her family. I would have had capacity—a part of the project of creating a more a very different and much poorer life if not for the just and inclusive country—for more than a century. universities that made it possible for me to work hard, Philanthropy played a central role in inventing the gain a spot, and then afford it. community library system, children’s television, As one of your students told the New York Times last look like—how did that country become the most week, fitting in can be hard in college, especially a prolific creator of bad jobs in economic history? well-off college, if you come from a disadvantaged How’d that happen, that dramatic turnaround— background. Enrolling someone is one thing, and even before the foreclosure crisis that became the making it possible for them to thrive and contribute financial crisis and then the Great Recession? Before is another. But the first and most decisive step is that big shock and all the job losses, back when opening that door. And you’re doing that here. And the economy was considered strong, perhaps one in that sends a powerful signal. four jobs in America was in low-paid, low-mobility, I once attended a speech by a governor who insecure work. Why? stopped more or less at this point and said, “But Here are some of the answers we’ve been given, that’s enough from me. I’ve got a great speech consistently, over the past three decades. writer, so let’s see what she thinks.” I’m not a Technological change and globalization undermined governor, and I write my own stuff. But let’s turn American competitiveness. In this telling, America’s now to the heart of the matter. position as an unrivaled exporter to the world was bound to erode. After the war, Japan and Europe Preview were devastated, but they rebuilt, and then new I’d like to address two principal questions in this competitors industrialized—competitors like Korea, talk. Taiwan, and later China. New technologies made First, what kind of economy does a just and it possible to communicate, travel, and trade in inclusive America require, and what will it really new ways across greater distances, and to offshore take to create it, given how unequal we have American jobs. become? The problem with this answer isn’t that it’s And second, how can we thrive in the context wrong. It’s quite true, actually. And insightful. of increasing racial and ethnic diversity? How And it’s a warning against hubris: a reminder that can we do that when we struggle with basic our fortunes are bound up with the rest of the questions of racial justice and segregation that world and that other countries are innovators and defined the headlines for news media, national strivers too. commissions, and electoral platforms more No, the problem with this easy answer to the than 40 years ago? Why haven’t we made more economic question is not that it’s wrong. The progress? Many thoughtful voices have weighed in problem is that it’s so incomplete. on aspects of this second question, particularly And over the past three decades, particularly as since the tragedies in Ferguson, Cincinnati, and wages stagnated and income and wealth inequality Staten Island—and since the rise of a movement grew dramatically, this answer too often came in to remind everyone that Black lives matter. If one the form of a genius-of-the-market story. kind of tragedy triggered that movement, the other tragedy is that such a movement, such a It called into question the very premise that declaration, would be necessary at all in America government has an important role to play in in the 21st century. With this second question, and protecting people in the economy and helping with all humility, I’d like to tie race—a defining everyone to thrive. It denied or ignored an earlier part of the American experiment—to the larger history, when America boomed through an Industrial question of justice and inclusion. Revolution and then invented the institutions to make a newly urban, industrial society more just Since campuses are all about lively debate, what I’d and livable—and to reconcile the power of markets really like to do is pose more impertinent versions with our highest values as a people. of those two questions. Then I plan to complain about the answers we too often get fed. And then But let’s set that history aside for a moment and I’d like to propose some different answers for you say this another way. An even simpler version of to consider. Sound OK? this story is that capitalism is what it is. It’s tough, sometimes for long periods, and there are winners The Economy Q: A Redraft and losers. All anyone can do is work hard and hope for the best. How did America, the country that boomed after the Second World War—driving the global economy Here’s the real problem, and it’s not about and business practice and, more than that, defining information technologies or trade deals or the rise for the world what inclusive economic growth could of China. The real problem is that there has always 2 been more than one version of capitalism, or what Because we allowed our version of capitalism to scholars call “varieties of capitalism”.1 become needlessly mean. There are different institutional rules in different Our politics and our culture let it happen. Foreign countries—different ideas and norms about safety competition and the computer mouse didn’t do it to nets, finance, and other things that make a modern us. economy possible. And there have been different And here’s the thing: I’m a recovering engineer and versions, over time, right here in America. also a social scientist. And don’t look now, but I just Back to the Industrial Revolution: It unleashed made a moral point. I said our version of capitalism tremendous growth and productivity, brought new became needlessly mean. devices and opportunities to millions, built the If we intend to call ourselves a nation of values, modern city, and changed the structure of society then let us commit to creating—I’m going to say itself.

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