In my From Poverty to Progress book series, I argue that we as a society need to focus more on material progress, which I define as “the sustained improvement in the material standard of living of a large group of people over a long period of time.” It is our greatest accomplishment, but we take it for granted.
We need to study history to learn the causes and origins of material progress, and then we need to apply that learning to create policies that result in future material progress. We also need to design policies so that the maximum number of people enjoy the benefits of that material progress.
In my third book Upward Mobility: A Radical New Agenda to Uplift the Poor and Working Class, I argue that most of our current social programs have failed. They have failed primarily because they have the wrong goal. Equality of Outcome is unachievable, while Equality of Opportunity is not enough. Instead, social programs should mainly focus on Upward Mobility. Upward Mobility is to the individual what material progress is to societies.
I advocate for a reform agenda to:
Create long-term economic growth in both wealthy nations and developing nations.
Create a prosperous working class.
Promote a clear pathway that enables youths from low-income families to enter the prosperous working class.
In my second book, Promoting Progress, I outline a number of reforms to roll back government programs that are undermining long-term economic growth (the first goal). To promote goals #2 and #3, we should overhaul the welfare state with:
Upward Bound accounts based on the Pathway to Success that enable youths from low-income families to make wise Life Choices
Phasing out virtually all current means-tested programs over the next four years.
Of course, this reform agenda cannot be implemented unless one of the major parties adopts its in their platform. In this article, I argue that it is to the political benefit of both parties to do so.
See more articles on Upward Mobility:
Why Progress and Upward Mobility should be the goal, not Equality
The Pathway to Success (first of three articles in series)
These articles are all excerpts from my third book Upward Mobility: A Radical New Agenda to Uplift the Poor and Working Class, which I am publishing on Substack. Most of these articles in this online book will only be available to paid subscribers.
Other books in my “From Poverty to Progress” book series:
A Message to Progressive Democrats
It is time for progressive Democrats to admit that the social programs enacted during the Great Society have failed to achieve their goals. Despite spending tens of trillions of dollars over the last sixty years, the poverty rate for adults under age 65 is almost exactly what it was in 1965. Adding more money to the system will not lead to better results, because that approach has been tried again and again. Each time the result is the same: failure.
The Great Society was a noble attempt that failed. The Great Society was based upon the desire of almost all Americans to help the poor and to achieve a society that gives opportunities to all. Noble goals, however, do not necessarily lead to positive outcomes. The Great Society is a classic example of a large-scale enterprise that failed to achieve its goals.
Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans are still far behind White Americans in virtually every category: income, wealth, education, and social status. While it is true that the top 1 percent have a higher percentage of income and wealth than in 1965, the real problem is that the bottom two-thirds have failed to keep up with the top third of college-educated professionals. Regardless of how much income and wealth the top 1 percent possesses, the professional class has prospered to a far greater extent than the rest of America.
If we are to achieve our goal of creating a more equitable America, progressive Democrats must acknowledge that creating centralized monopolies to insulate the poor and near-poor from market realities has done far more harm than good. The goal should instead be to integrate the poor, near-poor, and racial minorities into the rest of society, not protect them from society. Every attempt to expand the current system only intensifies the problem.
Progressive Democrats would do well to look back to a time when they dominated American politics. From 1932 to 1965, the New Deal coalition won most national, state, and local elections. During this period, New Deal Democrats won 7 of 9 presidential elections. They also had strong working majorities in both the U.S. House and Senate. New Deal Democrats also dominated most state and city governments.
The key to the political success of New Deal Democrats during this period was that they stood for policies that promoted the interests and values of the American working class.
The single most important voting block within the New Deal coalition was the working class. Because this was a time when there were very few immigrants, that effectively meant the white working class. The only years that New Deal Democrats failed to win presidential elections were when Eisenhower was able to win over this critical constituency.
Progressive Democrats also need to recognize that their attitudes and policies played a significant role in the white working class moving away from the Democratic party and towards the Republican party. Rather than trying to appeal to this critical voting block, progressive Democrats have often vilified them.
A political coalition for a more equitable America must include a very sizeable proportion of the white working class. Listen to what they say, and do not look for an ulterior motive, such as racism. The white working class is not hostile to Blacks; they are hostile to you. Own up to that.
The reforms described in this book would give Democrats a powerful weapon to fight back against conservative Republicans. The white working class has increasingly embraced the Republican party, not out of any close identification with their policies, but out of hostility to progressive policies and condescending attitudes. While the white working class once saw the Democrats as their party, now they view the Democrats as the party of professional-class progressives who have nothing but disdain for the working class.
The reforms described in this book will completely upend these perceptions. By shifting the focus from making the poor and near-poor more comfortable in a state of near-poverty to creating a prosperous working class, Democrats would take a big step towards changing working-class attitudes. Many of the actions and speech made by the white working class that seems irrational to you are just the result of them not having a major political party that speaks for their interests and values.
A political coalition of professional progressives, Blacks, Hispanics, and a substantial portion of the white working class would be an unbeatable coalition. Under such a coalition many so-called Red States would swing over to the Democrats. National elections would be dominated by Democrats, as would the majority of state elections. The New Deal coalition would be rebuilt and modernized.
But to get there, progressive Democrats need to confront the fact that policies that are very dear to their hearts have failed and must be abolished. I know that this will be hard to accept after campaigning in favor of their expansion for decades, but great victories do not come easy.
I know that this will not be easy for you. Progressive Democrats have based their mindset and campaign strategy on being the party of Compassion and conservative Republicans being uncaring. Progressive Democrats have used their support of programs for the poor and near-poor as a clear example of that compassion. Admitting that these cherished programs have hurt the very people who you are trying to help will be very difficult.
But continuing support for the policies that hurt the very people whom you are trying to help is not compassion; it is narrow-mindedness and stubbornness. Ignoring 60 years of bad results is not a sign of compassion; it is a sign of intransigence and self-indulgence. It makes progressive Democrats increasingly look like they care more about promoting an image of compassion rather than actually being compassionate.
The reason why so many voters oppose progressive social programs is not that those voters are racist or uncaring. It is because they believe that these policies do not work. Constantly pushing for more of the same will not change that belief. It will only make it more widespread.
Over the past generation, there has been a clear trend of the Democratic party increasing its support among white professionals while losing support from the white working class. While this trend helps fund-raising, it hurts their image as being the defenders of the disenfranchised.
With each passing year, the Democratic party looks more and more like the party of the professional class. If this trend continues, it will become increasingly hard to mobilize people who are not members of this class.
Progressive Democrats must be mindful of the very real probability that both Hispanics and Asians will abandon them as the party moves to the left. Neither group has strong affinities to the Democratic party. Both are mainly voting against a Republican party that does not seem interested in attracting their votes. Neither group has strong progressive views, nor can they be mobilized by appealing to racial solidarity. Losing Asians might be survivable, but losing Hispanic support would be a catastrophe.
Hispanic voters are quite similar to the white working class in their income and views, if not their voting behavior. Over the past two centuries, there has been a clear trend of immigrant groups supporting Democrats for the first few generations. But then as the integration process kicks in, the ancestors of immigrants move up the social ladder and inter-marry with other groups, and they switch to voting for the Republican party.
Intermarriage rates among native-born Hispanics are near 50%, and new immigrants coming from Mexico have declined precipitously since 2006. Based on all past trends, this makes it likely that Mexican-Americans will follow the path of Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, and a whole host of other ethnicities into the Republican party.
To stop this trend, progressive Democrats need to adopt new policies that appeal to the working class of all races and ethnicities. Current policies do the opposite. My proposal gives the Democrats a chance to rebuild and modernize the New Deal coalition that once dominated the American political system.
A Message to Conservative Republicans
It is time for Republicans to face the fact that their traditional political constituencies are shrinking. For the past four decades, the Republican party has been based upon two key constituencies: conservative professionals and evangelical Christians.
In the vast majority of professional-class neighborhoods, progressive Democrats are growing in support at the expense of conservative Republicans. The presidency of Donald Trump, in particular, accelerated this trend. There is no sign that this trend will change in the future.
At the same time, younger generations of Americans are not as attracted to evangelical Christianity as to the extent of previous generations. This key constituency gets older every year, and the power of the culture wars to mobilize moderates to your side shrinks every year.
If conservative Republicans restrict their appeals to these two groups, they will inevitably die as a competitive national party. The Republican party will survive in many Red states and most rural areas, but their chance of victory on the national level will substantially decline.
Countering these two trends, however, has been a sizable growth in support for Republicans among the white working class. This trend has been going on for fifty years, but it hit the national consciousness during the Reagan and Trump administrations. Conservatives must recognize that this trend was more a reaction against progressives rather than true support for conservatives.
Republicans have been complaining about the failure of the Great Society and other progressive social programs for generations. But when they are elected, they do nothing about it. Worse they have never really offered an alternative. This leaves Republicans wide open to Democratic charges of not caring about the poor or minorities.
Donald Trump showed that the Republican party can build a majority coalition based upon support from the white working class. Strong support from the Hispanic working class also seems possible in the near future, though it has not yet been realized.
But Donald Trump did not enact any policies that directly benefitted the white working class. And his political style alienated far too many voters. Donald Trump understood the white working class emotionally better than any politician since Ronald Reagan. But while Ronald Reagan motivated voters with positive and constructive rhetoric, Trump did the opposite.
Trump believed that the best way to appeal to the white working class was to make flamboyant statements and take actions that would enrage professional-class progressives. It worked. Professional-class progressives were enraged, and the white working class loved it. They loved it, not because they agreed with Trump. They loved it because someone was finally standing up for them.
But at the same time, this rhetorical strategy alienated many moderates whose support Republicans needed. The chickens finally came home to roost in 2020. During the recession and pandemic of 2020, Trump desperately needed those voters to get reelected. Trump losing in 2020 had far more to do with the recession and the epidemic than his rhetorical strategy, but Trump had alienated enough moderates to make his defeat far more likely.
Worse, Trump appeared to try to mobilize racist and violent right-wingers who rejected everything that Republicans believe in. While the vast majority of Trump’s actual policies were mainstream Republican, his rhetoric and style sometimes appeared far to the right of that. This caused moderates to wonder about Trump’s motives and beliefs. In politics, image often matters more than substance. In the end, enough moderates voted for Joe Biden to ensure Trump’s defeat.
The fundamental problem is that Donald Trump tried to substitute style for policy. Republicans need to embrace policies that will directly benefit the working class of all racial and ethnic groups. Tax cuts and deregulation will not do it. Nor will verbal attacks on progressive Democrats.
The policies outlined in this book will enable the Republican party to become the majority party for the next generation. Since these policies are specifically designed to benefit the working class, they will be a powerful motivator for the white and Hispanic working class. Adding these two critical voting blocks to the Republican party would create an unbeatable coalition that would win elections everywhere except the most affluent cities of the Northeast and Pacific Coast.
The policies outlined in this book will put progressive Democrats in a terrible dilemma. They are used to attacking heartless and uncaring Republicans. Now they will be forced to attack policies specifically designed to help people of below-average income. Now they will be forced to talk about results rather than intentions. Now they will be forced to defend cuts to policies that benefit people of above-average income.
The loss of Hispanic working-class voters would bring into clear view the fact that the Democratic party is dominated by white professionals with little support from the working- and lower classes. Democrats would undoubtedly be able to keep strong support from Blacks, but that would not preserve a broad enough coalition to compete on the national level.
A Message to Potential Third-party Candidates
For the last fifty years, American politics has become increasingly polarized. While in the 1960s there were plenty of conservative and moderate Democrats, now progressives completely dominate the Democratic party. And each year those progressives move further to the left.
While progressive and moderate Republicans were once commonplace, conservatives now dominate the Republican party. Anyone who does not comfortably fit into mainstream progressive or conservative politics has a very hard time getting nominated by either of the two major parties.
While our political system has polarized, voters are much less so. At least one-third and possibly 40% of voters do not fit into either camp. Forced to choose between two bad options, citizens vote for the candidate or party they least dislike. And they get more and more disgusted with politics.
While virtually every other sector of American society offers a wide variety of choices, our political system offers only two increasingly distasteful options. And those two options have been the same for 160 years. I cannot think of a single sector of American society that offers so few options and has gone through so little change during that period.
Third-party candidates have always been a passion of mine. I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation at Brown University on third-party presidential candidates. Soon after starting my research, Ross Perot declared himself a candidate and I supported him. Unfortunately, the Reform party could not survive his exit from political life. Though his attempt to win the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections and build a viable third party failed, I believe that he established a template for others to follow.
Though I support third-party candidates of the center, I am not naïve about their chances of success. A successful third-party candidate would need three things to succeed:
A charismatic personality with an ability to connect emotionally with typical voters. More to the point, that candidate should be able to connect with working-class voters of all races.
An ability to spend vast amounts of their own money (up to $100 million) to fund a presidential campaign.
A policy platform that mobilizes voting blocks that do not feel represented by progressive Democrats or conservative Republicans.
This book offers no solutions for points 1 and 2. I believe, however, that the policy reforms outlined in this book offer a very clear solution for point 3. The proposals in this book offer a way to mobilize very large segments of the American working class.
A third party that specifically focuses on creating a prosperous working class and giving a pathway to success for lower-income youth would be very popular. Together the white and Hispanic working class make up close to a majority of American voters. Neither group is very happy with the two major parties.
Of course, any third-party candidate must also take policy stands on foreign policy, social issues, and many other issues not addressed in this book. The policies outlined in this book, however, go a long way toward defining a candidate in a way that would be both popular and different from the major two parties.
Political Consequences of Supporting this Proposal
Make no mistake, whichever party supports the proposals outlined in this book would cause a radical realignment in American politics. That party would redefine its entire public image in a way that would be very uncomfortable for those who currently dominate the two major parties. The amount of money currently being spent on means-tested programs and the radical nature of the proposals would cause permanent changes in voting behavior.
A Republican party that upholds this proposal and fully implements it would become the party of the working class. It would stand in clear opposition to a Democratic party dominated by high-income professionals living in the affluent metros of the Northeast and Pacific coast.
A Democratic party that upholds this proposal and fully implements it would once again become the party of the people. The poor and working-class of all races would loyally support the party, much as they did during the glory days of the New Deal.
See more articles on Upward Mobility:
Why Progress and Upward Mobility should be the goal, not Equality
The Pathway to Success (first of three articles in series)
These articles are all excerpts from my third book Upward Mobility: A Radical New Agenda to Uplift the Poor and Working Class, which I am publishing on Substack. Most of these articles in this online book will only be available to paid subscribers.
Other books in my “From Poverty to Progress” book series:
How do you estimate a 3d party candidate should deal with foreign affair issues?Try to minimize spending and lower the debt or keep strong support for allied nations?Working class people seemingly would prefet the former approach,but politicians shouldn't rely on promised they aren't willing to deliver