Enforcing The Rules Of Integrity

What used to be called conflict of interest is now called synergy — Jack Grubman

In response to my post on framing below, reader Sara pointed me to Eliot Spitzer’s speech at the National Press Club yesterday for a great example of re-framing the Democratic argument, and it is a really good one.

I urge you to listen to the whole thing because Spitzer is such a great example of the “fighting liberal” we need more of. He points out that the rules of integrity that we all agree and understand must be enforced to keep the system running efficiently can only be done by government. Business cannot be relied upon to self-regulate because those who reject the practices of their competitors is almost always at a disadvantage. It’s a race to the bottom in which each enterprise excuses its behavior by saying it is not quite as bad as the other guy.

(I was struck at how this frames the issue of “the market” in terms that recognize Democrats as the “enforcers of the rules” while casting the Republican business elite as the out of control party boys who can’t be relied upon to police their own behavior. As I was listening I had a picture of a kid saying that they’d love to join in the binge drinking and drag racing fun, but their father is a tough cop and they’d better not. Strict father gives the kids a way to avoid peer pressure.)

He also discusses how much the laissez faire philosophy of deregulation and protections for cronies and contributors has led to loss of shareholder value and misallocation of capital to losing enterprises due to their dishonesty and lack of transparency. It’s bad for the economy and the current administration is exacerbating it by protecting the status quo to the detriment of the nation as a whole.

As an example, after the disclosure that the makers of Paxil had withheld from the public information that clearly showed that there was a high risk of suicide in teen-agers who used the drug, he quotes the WSJ editorial page as saying “the system is working exactly as it should.”

He discusses “values” in the context that only government can “enforce” business behavior that recognises our cultural values such as anti-discrimination or minimum wage. He says, “the marketplace alone can’t get us there.” “Democrats believe in the market and we understand the market, but it will not survive if we do not understand it’s flaws and government does not enforce the rules of integrity.”

With regard to the social security debate, he said that the Democrats are the ones who built the middle class, protected their investments and created the ownership society that already is America. The Republicans, contrary to the popular view, are “cloaking themselves in the language of the market, but speaking for the ossified status quo.”

This is an elegant way of framing our position. Democrats are the reformers — by being the enforcers. In this political climate those are powerful words. Fighting liberal reformers battling to enforce the rules that maximise the efficiency of the market and promote our values.

Who’s your (strict) daddy, now?