Book Review : Manifesto of Hope--on the State Level

Laboratories of Democracy by David Osborne (Harvard Business School Press: $24.95, 384 pages)

If Gary Hart, or any other once or future presidential aspirant, is still looking for “new ideas,” let him (or her) read “Laboratories of Democracy” by David Osborne. They will find some clear thinking about the social and economic woes of our troubled nation, and some practical solutions to those problems. Of course, Michael Dukakis need not rush out to buy a copy--he is one of six governors whose experiments in economic and social activism are studied in depth in Osborne’s book.

The title of the book echoes a bit of Progressivist rhetoric from a 1932 Supreme Court opinion by Louis Brandeis: “There must be power in the States and the Nation to remould, through experimentation, our economic practices and institutions to meet changing social and economic needs. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”

The whole point of Osborne’s book is that activists at the state level have taken up the fallen banners of economic development from a laissez-faire federal government. He studies six states where experimental programs are in progress, and introduces us to the governors who championed these programs: Dukakis of Massachusetts, Mario Cuomo of New York, Bruce Babbit of Arizona, Bill Clinton of Arkansas, Richard Thornburgh of Pennsylvania, and James Blanchard of Michigan. And Osborne suggests that these “laboratories” are inventing the economic policies and social programs that will become the New Deal of the ‘90s--and beyond.

“Ronald Reagan owed his election to the deepening economic crisis of the ‘70s, but his solution was to reach back to the free-market myths of the preindustrial era,” Osborne explains. “Most governors have not had that luxury.”

Instead, they were forced to confront the economic stagnation that is a side effect of a world economy transformed by “technical advance and global competition.” The very nature of the economic upheavals, Osborne suggests, have rendered old policies as obsolete as the vacuum tube: “During the industrial era, stability was an important element of economic growth: corporations strove to create stable markets and work forces, while governments strove to create stable environments for corporations,” he explains. “In the new economy, rapid change is the norm, and flexibility--not stability--is the key to success.”

Complex Programs

Osborne traces the “new paradigm” of political activism to the so-called “class of ‘74”--the young politicians who entered public life in the wake of the Watergate crisis, including Jerry Brown and Gary Hart as well as Dukakis, Blanchard and Babbitt--and he details their learning curve in public office. To his credit, Osborne is not content with bland generalities and anecdotal success stories about complex social and economic programs--rather, he names names, cites statistics that indicate failures as well as successes, and decodes the alphabet soup of acronymic programs that is so reminiscent of the New Deal, from BIDCO to ERIM, MICRO to MILRITE, PIC to TEE. As a result, “Laboratories of Democracy” is not another “Small Is Beautiful”--but it is all the more important for its attention to detail.

Osborne does not fall into the comfortable trap of fashioning economic solutions for the problems of the wealthy and the middle class only. Rather, he insists on two agendas--first, the creation of economic growth by “nourishing the elements that make innovation possible: a vibrant intellectual infrastructure; a skilled, educated work force; an attractive quality of life; an entrepreneurial climate; a sufficient supply of risk capital; a healthy market for new products and processes; a commitment to industrial modernization; an industrial culture built on cooperation and flexibility; and a social system that supports innovation and change.”

The second agenda aspires to rescue the poor from the institutionalized despair of the American underclass. “Creating economic growth and bringing the poor into that process are fundamentally different tasks,” he warns. “Even the best economic development system will not do a great deal for the poor. Few governors have grasped this new reality. But a few of the more liberal governors, such as Michael Dukakis and Mario Cuomo, have begun to pioneer a development agenda in poor communities . . . through education, training, employment and investment.”

As I read “Laboratories of Democracy” with mounting enthusiasm, I warned myself that Osborne might be just one more utopian drum-beater. (I was cautioned, too, by Osborne’s warm praise of Jerry Brown, whose fuzzy thinking, political ineptitude and sheer flakiness all but discredited progressive Democratic politics in California.)

But Osborne himself is so sensible, so hardheaded, and so rooted in the nuts-and-bolts of the economic programs--what makes them succeed, and what makes them fail--that I found myself reassured that “Laboratories of Democracy” is just what the author intends it to be--a thoroughly practical political agenda and a stirring manifesto of hope for America in the 21st Century.