Chairman’s Message: One Size Does Not Fit All Anymore
Step into a Starbuck's, and you are faced with a wide array of beverage choices. Flip on cable television, and the number of channels you can choose from has grown by a factor of 100 since the first days of the medium. Looking for news, you are no longer confined to one or two local newspapers and three networks newscasts.
The early twentieth century's mass production economic model has given way to customization focused on satisfying niche markets. An organization's ability to quickly personalize a user's experience provides a far greater competitive advantage than reproducing the same product in large quantities. Gone are the days when Henry Ford told Model T buyers that they could have any color car, so long as it was black.
We take these marketplace changes for granted, however government services have not kept up. In the nineties, some liberals, such as Tony Blair in Britain and yes, Bill Clinton, tried to reconcile the left's goals with the current economy through a "Third Way." Today, though, these attempts at modernization on the left have been all but abandoned.
The fiercest resistance comes from those liberals who believe that having common "shared experiences" through standardization is always "fairer" than allowing individual variation. Their goals reflect communitarian notions of "positive rights" that focuses on guarantees to expanded benefits and universal entitlements. Rather than adjust to individual preferences, they seek "equity" through uniformity across the entire population.
Consider the disappointment of many liberals with ObamaCare because the plan does not satisfy their goal of a more uniform standard of care though a "single-payer" system.
Consider also the draft. Today the efforts to reinstate it come not from national security hawks, but from liberals. Liberal Democrat Charles Rangel is the principal sponsor of legislation for a draft, along with a national service requirement. He argues that having all 18 and 19 year olds have the same shared experience of service is better for society than letting individuals make their own life choices.
Zoning ideologues, such Governor O'Malley promoting his "PlanMaryland," want to discourage private automobile usage and rural living in favor mass transit and denser population concentration.
This week former quarterback Fran Tarkington, in a Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal op-ed posed the rhetorical question "What if the NFL Played by Teachers' Rules?":
"Imagine the National Football League in an alternate reality. Each player's salary is based on how long he's been in the league. It's about tenure, not talent. The same scale is used for every player, no matter whether he's an All-Pro quarterback or the last man on the roster. For every year a player's been in this NFL, he gets a bump in pay. The only difference between Tom Brady and the worst player in the league is a few years of step increases. And if a player makes it through his third season, he can never be cut from the roster until he chooses to retire, except in the most extreme cases of misconduct."
Tarkington's points are humorous, but he makes a significant point about how today's workforce has changed. Union membership has declined along with America's mass-production economy. In 1945 almost 36% of American workers were represented by unions, overwhelmingly in the private sector. Today private sector union membership is barely 7%. An overwhelming majority of Americans have opted for the flexibility and rewards of at-will employment rather than accept the "protections" of working in a more regimented union workplace.
The Montgomery County's teachers union's website is illustrative of the intense fear many liberal have to letting people make their own choices. MCEA's website contains a prominent link to content attacking DC's public charter school process.
Nearly 40% of the District's public school students now attend public charter schools. Even more would if only more charter "slots" were available. District parents still must take their chances with the district's lottery selection program before qualifying for a charter school.
MCEA's opposition to school choice reflects their deep fear that if given the opportunity, parents might pick schools other than the one they represent. MCEA places place the interests of "producers" - them- ahead of "consumers" - the public.
Contrast MCEA's approach with that Starbucks, ESPN or the many other new services that compete for your patronage. As MCEA fights hard to prevent your ever being able to choose, they are an anachronism doomed to face an increasingly skeptical public.
Mark Uncapher
Montgomery County Republican Chairman
MCGOP CONVENTION!