Maring thinks that the common good is achieved where “everyone has access to the basic necessities of life.”
I happened upon Gary E. Maring's Seeking The Common Good through Public Policy (2021) by chance. In writing about Jonathan Eig's King: A Life I wanted to make the point that King sought not just racial justice for Blacks, but also for the greater common good, both within the USA and abroad. I knew that many wise people, past and present, had thought that seeking such a goal should be the main aim of politics, and that in this present polarized period too many of us are poisoning ourselves by forgetting or misinterpreting that aim. Thus, wanting to explore that goal more, I did a few google searches and discovered Maring's book—and for only $4 for a Kindle edition. Thus, I ordered it.
Another part of its appeal was that its cover portrayed stained-glass window and other depictions from D. C.’s Luther Place Memorial Church of four of my heroes, all of whom I have written about—Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Harriet Tubman. (At that same church, author Maring “has been a congregational leader and a social justice advocate” for over 50 years.)
In my piece on Eig’s King, I mentioned only Maring’s earlier book Faith, Social Justice, and Public Policy: A Progressive’s View, and that in his newer Seeking the Common Good through Public Policy he added this: “I am increasingly drawn to the concept of the common good, which to me means a society where everyone has access to the basic necessities of life—a place to live, food to eat, and access to education, employment, health care, and human dignity.”
Now, however, let’s look at much more that he has to say—all of which fits in well with the progressive tradition most of us cherish. In his Introduction he states that the Industrial Revolution brought forth in the post-Civil-War “market forces” that caused significant “negative social conditions.” But these were counteracted by political leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt, and later Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, all of whom were in the progressive tradition of trying to use government powers to mitigate the negative forces that capitalism worsened or ignored.
But, writes Maring,
Unfortunately, in recent years we have seen pushback against some of these [progressive] policies and have witnessed growing economic inequality, racial tensions, anti-immigrant sentiments, and political polarization. We see economic and social distress in many Rust Belt communities due in part to loss of manufacturing and extractive industry jobs caused by technology and globalization. Further, our country’s demographics are changing, and this is unsettling to many whites, particularly in more rural states and communities. Both the economic and the social unrest drove many in these communities to vote for what they saw as a candidate who would bring change in the 2016 presidential election. Unfortunately, the resulting change has too often been counter to the common good.
Since Maring’s book was published very early in 2021, he was not able to assess the first few years of the Biden presidency. He did note, however, that “the last days of the Trump administration, including the white supremacist assault on the Capitol, was one of the worst periods in American history and will leave an indelible stain on our democracy. So many immediate challenges face the new Biden administration.”
Toward the end of his Introduction, Maring indicates various areas where “significant detractors” have occurred to hamper the USA in furthering the common good. The categories include the following: Economic inequality, Poverty and homelessness, Racial justice, Gender and family issues, Gay rights, Immigration, Health care, Voting rights, and Environmental sustainability.
Pointing these out and elaborating upon them is important because what criteria one uses to measure the common good is of crucial importance. Trump and his supporters can say—and perhaps some really believe—that his policies were and are best suited to achieve that goal.
For example, Brian Burch’s A New Catholic Moment: Donald Trump and the Politics of the Common Good (2020) argues as follows:
What ultimately matters is whether President Trump’s presence in the Oval Office after 2020 will be better for the common good of our nation and our ability to live out our calling as Catholics than would the presence in that office of his Democratic opponent....There are also extremely weighty reasons to view his candidacy in a very positive light. Indeed, the goals he is seeking to achieve in public policy often bear an uncanny resemblance to the principles of Catholic social teaching. Not least, his record on championing the right to life....for the unborn is simply without comparison for a U.S. president....He has appointed judges to the federal bench—200 of them—who are committed to uphold the Constitution and to respect the basic freedoms of religion and conscience. He has worked, with incomplete success, to defund Planned Parenthood. . . . Indeed, in 2020, Donald Trump is Catholics’ best choice—perhaps our only choice.
Note that Burch insists that a Trump victory in 2020 would have been better not only for Catholics, but “better for the common good.” But that is because he identifies the common good with many conservative Catholic positions such as the belief that abortion is always wrong. In general his position is more akin to that which Pope Francis (whom, by the way, is often quoted by Maring) labeled ideological Christianity. The pope thought such a Christianity was “a serious illness....rigid, moralistic, ethical, but without kindness.”
Maring, however, thinks that the common good is achieved where (as indicated in the third paragraph above) “everyone has access to the basic necessities of life.” He also emphasizes compassion for society’s unfortunates, and “acting in the interests of....children’s and grandchildren’s future.”
His first two chapters are devoted to “Social Justice and the Common Good,” with the second one highlighting various religions’ approaches to that “good.” He begins by writing that “the common good and social justice are interrelated concepts; to live in a good society is to live in a just society....Elements of the common good include but are not limited to food, health, education, shelter, energy, environmental stewardship, transportation, peace, security, freedom, and human dignity.” He also notes that the concept of the common good “is central to the tenets of many religious faiths and can be succinctly described as doing unto others as we would wish done unto ourselves (i. e., the Golden Rule).” (In his The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama writes that the same “rule” is “at the heart of my moral code.”)
Maring’s third chapter is entitled “Economic Opportunity.” In it he indicates that the U. S. “has higher economic inequality than most competitors, and this has increased in recent decades.” Here and throughout his book, he refers to many books and other studies to support his points. Here, for example, one of these is Joseph Stiglitz’s The Price of Inequality (2013). Maring also notes that inequality developments have especially disadvantaged minorities and males (including white males) with little education. He cites Federal Reserve data that indicated that in 2016 “African American families’ median net worth was $17,600 in 2016, versus $171,000 for white households, a tenfold difference.”
Chapters Four and Five deal with Poverty and Homelessness. Having helped found “DC’s largest program for homeless women” and having worked with homeless people for many decades, Maring is especially knowledgeable about their plight. His experiences also help explain his special fondness for Dorothy Day, who did so much to help the homeless by establishing her many Hospitality Houses. In that homelessness is such a big problem in the LA area, his insights regarding it should be of special interest to readers of the LA Progressive (LAP) and Hollywood Progressive (HP).
Chapters 6 and 7 focus on Human/Civil Rights and Environmental Sustainability, two areas that I also devoted most of two chapters to in my An Age of Progress? Clashing Twentieth-Century Global Forces (2008).
In dealing with racism Maring quotes, among others, Frederick Douglass, but not his words that “our greatness and grandeur will be found in the faithful application of the principle of perfect civil equality to the people of all races and of all creeds, and to men of no creeds.” (Douglas advocated a “composite nation,” a concept that historian Jill Lepore calls “a strikingly original and generative idea, about a citizenry made better, and stronger, not in spite of its many elements, but because of them.”)
As opposed to Douglass’s “composite nation,” Maring emphasizes that Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign “harkened back to a time of white patriarchal dominance,” of “white nationalism.” And Trump “pursued a divisive white nationalist agenda as part of his 2020 campaign rather than trying to bring the country together during a pandemic and great racial divide.” Thus, our present choice is between embracing our growing multi-ethnic diversity or attempting to maintain white nationalism, which (as Maring notes) has had a long history of U. S. advocates but is now most symbolized by Donald Trump and his followers.
In discussing racism the author also mentions our disgraceful treatment of Native Americans. It helped produce the following statistic: “By the close of the Frontier Wars in the late nineteenth century, fewer than 238,000 indigenous people remained, a sharp decline from the estimated 5 million to 15 million living in North America when Columbus arrived in 1492.”
Maring also quotes Ta-Nehisi Coates, who has written for the Atlantic magazine on racism. He believes that “white supremacy is so foundational to America that it will be impossible to ever eradicate it.” But Maring himself writes that he himself remains “optimistic that through our governmental institutions, laws, courts, elected officials, shared values, and citizen engagement, we can build a better nation and world.”
He also refers to two of Coates’ Atlantic articles, one (“The Case for Reparations”) in 2014 and another (“The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration”) in 2015. In the first Coates argued that reparations would drive a “national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.” In the second, he highlighted “the devastating impact of mass incarceration on Black families....One in four Black men born since the late 70s has spent time in prison.” And “from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, America’s incarceration rate doubled. From the mid-80s to the mid-90s it doubled again. Then it went still higher.”
Regarding reparations, he quotes New York Times correspondent David Brooks as writing that although reparations would be difficult to implement, “the very act of talking about and designing them heals a wound and opens a new story.” (Maring also quotes Brooks favorably on advocating for the common good versus a more selfish political outlook, and indeed there is much to admire in Brooks’ political views even though he has long been considered a conservative columnist.)
In dealing with Human Rights, Maring also pays special attention to immigrants and refugees. He writes, for example, of the “Trump administration pursuing a massive deportation approach that in many cases broke up families who have been here many years and who were contributing positively to the US economy.”
The author’s chapter on “Environmental Sustainability” is about 25 pages long and details all of our major environmental concerns including climate change. Among the many sources he cites is Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical on the environment entitled On Care for Our Common Home. (See here for more on the encyclical.)
Chapter 8 is devoted to the “The Global Common Good.” As Maring states, “The concept of the common good compels us to increasingly recognize our global citizenship and concern for all humanity and the environmental sustainability of the planet we share.” Like Martin Luther King Jr., who displayed such great empathy for Vietnamese peasants, Maring here demonstrates concern for the welfare of people beyond our own borders.
In Chapter 9, “Achieving the Common Good through Public Policy,” Maring indicates his preference for what is sometimes labeled “inclusive capitalism,” which “seeks to make our economic system more equitable, sustainable, and inclusive.” He also observes the need for political compromises: “Every important progressive policy success in American history that facilitated the common good, including abolition, women’s suffrage, labor rights, a progressive income tax, Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, and marriage equality, has required compromises in persuading potential allies who may have different political or policy views. Purity in one’s political position, although seemingly virtuous, seldom leads to fundamental change in society.”
In Chapter 10, “Final Thoughts,” the author sums up his thinking. He includes here his call for more “support for community colleges and vocational programs in cooperation with industry.” And it is in this area that one of my few disagreements with Maring arises.
In an earlier piece for LAP, I noted that E.F Schumacher wrote that,
the education most people received did not give them much help in going beyond “mere training, something more than mere knowledge of facts, and something more than a mere diversion.” He criticized what eventually became the dominant aim of higher education—career preparation for work in our modern industrial societies, which were “incessantly stimulating greed, envy, and avarice.” He granted that the dominant educational systems might help people obtain jobs that made them richer and able to afford more consumer goods and services—at least for a while. But he also believed that their education was preparing them to live in unhealthy economic systems and societies that were environmentally unsustainable.
In dealing with educational programs to enhance the common good, Maring mentions little but more vocational training. The problem with that is his focus is too narrow for overcoming fundamental problems like poverty, racism, and climate change. At root they are value issues. “Vocational,” technical education, unlike one that more properly stresses philosophy, literature, history, etc., fails to address values. As Schumacher and thinkers like Robert Sternberg emphasize, education that neglects values will not solve our major social problems. To greatly advance the common good we need not only to take many of the steps Maring suggests, but also to reassess our basic values.
