Roberto Mangabeira Unger on What Progressives Should Propose

The world suffers at the hands of a

dictatorship of no alternatives

Its power is manifest in many ways.

There is now a very limited

range of institutional options for the

organization of different areas

of social life.

This restrictive institutional repertory

has become the fate of the

contemporary societies

There are two types of leftists

or of progressives

There is a resign, surrender left

it accepts the market economy in its

present form

and globalization on its present course

and tries to humanize them

especially through compensatory

redistribution by tax and transfer

the key note of its politics

is the humanization of the inevitable

its program, is the program of its

conservative adversaries

with a humanizing discount

Then there is a recalcitrant,

nostalgic left

It too lacks an alternative

to the present form of a market

or the present direction of globalization

It wants simply, to slow their course

the better to defend the prerogatives

of its historical constituency

the organized labour force headquartered

in the capital intensive

sectors of industry

In every country in the world

that base is a shrinking part of a

population increasingly seen

as just one more interest group

rather than as the bearer

of the universal interests

of society

In the rich north atlantic world

the horizon of programmatic debate

has become increasingly narrowed

down to the attempt

to reconcile American-style economic

flexibility and European-style social

protection within the limits of the inherited

institutional framework

that frame work was designed

in the social democratic settlement

of the mid twentieth century

under the terms of that settlement

the forces that challenged

the existing organization

of power and of production

abandoned the challenge

the state was allowed to acquire the power

to redistribute by tax and transfer

to regulate the economy

more thoroughly

and to conduct a counter cyclical

economic policy

now however none of the fundamental

problems of contemporary societies

can be solved

or even addressed

unless we reopen the terms

of that social democratic settlement

and innovate in the institutional

arrangements that organize democracies

market economies and free civil societies

the consequences of the dictatorship

of no alternatives are far reaching

the result of the restrictive

institutional repertory

is to hold hostage

all of our recognized

ideals and interests

our interests and ideals

always remain nailed to the cross

of the institutions and practices

that represent them in fact

the dictatorship of no alternatives

undermines the force

and hollows out the content

of the most powerful message

in the world today

the message shared

by the revolutionary projects

of democracy, liberalism, and socialism

and by the world wide popular

romantic culture

the essential creed of democracy

is faith

in the constructive genius of ordinary

men and women

and the message of the popular

revolutionary romantic culture

is that all men and women

are god-like

and can raise themselves up

to a greater life

here I outline

a path for the progressives

I advance in four steps

the incitements, the direction

the change

and the obstacles

the incitements

a first incitement is the opportunity

presented by a momentous

shift in the style of production

a new form of production

is emerging in the world

in the major developing countries

as well as in the richest economies

it is characterized not simply

by the accumulation

of capital technology and

knowledge but also

by a set of practices

of productive experimentalism

these practices

soften the contrast between

conception and execution

they relativize the distinctions

amongst specialized work roles

they mix cooperation and competition

in the same domains

above all

they transform productive activity

into a collective practice

of permanent discovery

and innovation

the problem

is that this productive vanguardism

remains isolated in advance sectors

only weakly linked

to the other sectors

of the national economies in which

they exist

the vast majority of humanity

is excluded from them

in richer countries

as well as in poorer ones

the two traditional devices

for the attenuation of inequality

compensatory redistribution

and promotion of small business

prove inadequate to the task

of mastering the vast

forces of inequality

and of exclusion

that result

from this new form

of the hierarchical segmentation of

the economy

the emerging style of production

is not a horse that we can ride to freedom

It is simply an occassion

to be mastered and redirected

a second incitement

is the desire of nations to be different

the role of nations and nation-states in a

world of democracies

is to represent a moral specialization

within mankind

humanity develops its powers

only by developing them in different

directions and expressing them

in divergent forms of life

to be strong and independent

nations must give up a part of

themselves

emptying out the tangible

and customary content

of their collective identities

two neighbouring peoples

come to hate each other

not because they are different

but because they are becoming alike

and want to be different

the poisonous character of contemporary

nationalism lies in this

the desire to differ

is inflamed

by an impotent

will to difference

in the presence of the weighting of

actual difference

but the solution

is not to retreat

into an empty cosmopolitanism

it is to equip

the desire for collective difference

with institutional instruments

the differences to be created in the

future matter more than the

differences inherited from the past

prophecy over memory

a third incitement is the desire of

hundreds of millions of ordinary

men and women

to rise to a condition

of modest prosperity

and independence

and to escape

the servile circumstance

of dependent wage labour

when Abraham Lincoln remarked

that no one would accept

the life long condition of

hired labour

other than either because

of a dependent nature

or improvidence folly or singular

misfortune, he was expressing

a view widely shared

by the liberals and socialists

of the nineteenth century

but then given up

by the ideologists

of the left

in the twentieth century

by default

the desire for independence

is commonly fixed

on the narrow forms

of small holding

or isolated

family business

the task of the progressives

would be to meet this desire

on its own terms

and to provide it

with a broader range

of forms of satisfaction

through the institutional reorganization

of the market economy

the direction

the distinguishing feature

of a progressive or left position

today is to combine

devotion to the achievement of a greater

life for the ordinary man and woman

with a program for the institutional

reorganization of society

the liberals and socialists of

the nineteenth century understood

that equality is subordinate

to greatness

and entrenched an extreme inequality

is to be combated as a restraint

on the achievement

of that larger objective

and they all had an institutional proposal

for the socialists the governmental

direction of the economy

for the liberals

the establishment

of a single dogmatic version

of the market ecocomy and of democracy

their view of greatness was

too narrowly modelled on

the aristocratic experience

of self possession

and their institutional forumlas

are no longer credible to us

but we must reassert

the vital combination between

the idea of greatness

and the commitment to the

institutional transformation

of the economy

of politics

and of civil society

that is the only way

to be faithful to the most

powerful message that

the political programs of

democracy, liberalism, and socialism

share with the popular romantic

revolutionary message

of the empowerment

of ordinary humanity

whichever force, right or left

most plausibly embodies this message

of vitality

of capability

of greatness

will command the political agenda

of the future

I now outline four planks in a

progressive platform

a democratized market economy

that provides the majority

of men and women

with the instruments of

effective agency

a form of education that

allows them to see beyond

the present context

a way of organizing civil society

that ensures a practical basis

for social solidarity

stronger than money transfers

and a high energy democracy

that diminishes the dependence

of change upon crisis

such a program is not a blueprint

it is a direction

a succession of steps

not architecture, but music

its intentions are not merely local

a universal orthodoxy

such as neoliberalism

can be successfully

resisted only by

a universalizing heresy

as liberalism and socialism

were in their day

and the whole world

is now bound together

by a chain

of analogous problems

and solutions

a democratized market economy

distinguish a point of departure

and a horizon

the point of departure

is the effort

to broaden access

to the new vanguards

of production

and allow the practices

of productive experimentalism

to spread through large parts

of the society and the economy

to this end we must innovate

in the institutional arrangements

shaping the relations

between governments and firms

there are now two models

of government-firm relations

available in the world

the American model of arms-length

regulation of business by government

and the north east Asian model of

formulation of unitary trade and industrial

policy imposed top down

by the bureaucratic apparatus

of the state

we require a third model

a form of strategic coordination

between governments and firms

that is decentralized, pluralistic

participatory, and experimental

the horizon is a change

in the character of production

and of labour

with two aspects

one aspect

is the reconstruction of free labour

economically dependent wage labour

was always a compromise

retaining some of the characteristics

of slavery and serfdom

the aim is to affirm the predominance

of the two other forms of free labour

combined with each other

self employment and cooperation

in such a way that they can

address the problems of scale

the other aspect

is to change the relations

between people and machines

everything that we have learned how

to repeat we can express in a formula

and whatever we can express in a

forumla we can embody in a

physical contraption - a machine

the point of machines

is to do for us everything that we

have learned to repeat

the better to preserve the time of our

lives for the not yet repeatable

and inbetween the point of departure

and the horizon

the institutional reshaping of

the market economy

so that it ceases to be fastened to a

single institutional version of itself

the familiar idea of economic freedom

as the power to recombine factors of

production within an institutional

structure of production and exchange

that is left unchallenged

should be deepened

into a larger power to innovate

in the institutional arrangements

of production and exchange

alternative regimes of private

and social property would come

to co-exist experimentally

within the same market economy

education

the role of a school in a democracy

is to be the voice of the future

recognizing in every child

a tongue tied prophet

the school should not serve

as the instrumentality of the family

which says 'become like me'

or of the state which says

'be useful to me'

education is to empower the mind

to see and to discover

more than the established context

can countenance

there are two priorities

the first priority is to reconcile

especially in countries that are

large, unequal and decentralized

the local management of the schools

with national standards of investment

and quality

the quality of the education

that a child receives

should not depend on the

happenstance of its birth

to reconcile local management

with national standards

three tools are necessary

the first is a national system of

evaluation of performance

the second is a mechanism to

redistribute resources and staff

from richer places to poor places

the third is a procedure

for corrective intervention

in local failing school systems

the second priority is radically to change

the way of teaching and learning

it is not enough

to subordinate information to analysis

and problem solving

or to sacrifice superficial

encyclopaedic coverage to selective

deepening in the service of analytic

capability or to prefer cooperation

to the combination of individualism

and authoritarianism

it is also necessary to establish

in the approach to receive knowledge

a dialectical attitude

every subject should be addressed from

at least two contrasting points of view

civil society

in even the most equal countries in the world

money transfers in the form of social

entitlements have become the major

basis of social solidarity

money is too weak a social cement

the only adequate basis of social solidarity

is direct responsibility to

take care of other people

the very young

the very old

or the infirm and the needy

outside the boundaries

of ones own family

every able bodied adult

should have at least two positions

in society

one in the production system

the other in the caring economy

this change in the practical basis of

social solidarity should be prepared by

an innovation in the way in which we provide

public services

an innovation of enormous value

in its own right

what we now have

is the bureaucratic provision

of standardized low quality public services

that is to say

public services of lower quality than the

analogous services that can be bought

by those who have money

and the only alternative seems to be

the privatization of public services

in favour of profit driven firms

there is however

another option

that the state act to equip

to finance

and to coordinate

independent civil society

so that it shares in the competitive

and experimental provision of

public services

that is the best way to

enhance their quality

and at the same time

to create the arrangements and

the attitudes hospitable to a higher

level of social cohesion

democracy

democratic politics is not just one more

terrain for institutional experimentation

it is the area in which we determine

the condition for the revision of

the arrangements in all the other areas

the democracies that now exist in the world

continue to make change depend upon crisis

their rule is - no crisis, no change

a high energy democracy will diminish

the dependence of change upon crisis

and turn democracy

not simply into a form of majority rule

qualified by minority rights

but also into a collective

practice of the creation of the new

a high energy democracy requires

five sets of convergent

institutional innovations

the first set of innovations is

designed to increase the temperature

of politics

the level of organized

popular engagement in public life

the premise is that a politics

with rich structural content

is necessarily a high temperature politics

innovations that establish the

public financing of campaigns

that extend free access to the means

of mass communication

to the benefit of the organized

social movements as well as the

political parties

and that change the electoral regimes

in ways that favour the presentation of

definite options for society

a second set of innovations

hastens the pace of politics

take the example of American-style

presidential government

imitated in much of Latin America

it combines a liberal principle

of fragmentation of power

with a conservative principle of the

slowing down of politics

the result

is to establish a kind of

correspondence between the

transformative ambition of a political

project and the severity of the

constitutional obstacles they must

overcome to be implemented

our interest is to reaffirm the liberal

principle but to repudiate the

conservative one

the Americans imagine

that they are naturally and

necessarily combined

they are not

they are combined by design

to inhibit the political transformation

of society

if the context is that of

a presidential form of government

we would equip the regime

with instruments for the rapid

overcoming of deadlock between

the political branches

for example

either of the political branches

would enjoy the prerogative of calling

early elections which however

would always be bilateral

for both political branches

in this way

the branch that exercised

the constitutional prerogative

would have to pay the political price

of running the electoral risk

a third set of innovations

would exploit the latent experimentalist

potential of a federal regime

different parts of the country

or even different sectors of society

would enjoy the right to opt out

of the general solutions

and to create counter models of the future

without it being the case that

the degree of deviation that is

allowed to one locality

or one sector

would have to be universalized

for all of them

a fourth set of innovations

establishes in the state

a distinct power or even a new

branch designed, equipped, and

legitimated to come to the rescue

of groups suffering from forms of

exclusion or disadvantage

from which they are unable to escape

by the means of collective action

that are available to them

it is a form of structural but

localized intervention

that does not fit within

the limits of the present

organization of government

a fifth set of innovations

enriches representative democracy

with elements of direct or

participatory democracy

the best terrain in which to

advance in this way

is the engagement of independent

civil society

in the experimental and competitive

provision of public services

the path marked by these changes

in the organization of the market economy

of education, of civil society,

and of democracy

has as its counterpart

a reshaping of the world political

and economic order

globalization is not there on

a take it or leave it basis

we are not confined to having

more of it or less of it

we need a different globalization

the political and economic order that

has been developed in the world

since the second world war is a

Metternichean project

in the name of political security

and economic openness

it threatens to impose on all

of humanity a formula of

compulsive convergence to the same

set of institutions and practices

when in fact our interest lies

in radical experiments in the

institutional forms of the market economy

of free civil society

and of democracy

take the example of the world

trade regime

the regime that is being established

in the world

conforms to four principles

all of which should be replaced

the first principle is to

maximize the opportunities for free trade

but free trade is not an end

it is just a means

the end should be the co-existence

of alternative experiences of

civilization and alternative

trajectories of development

within a world economic order

that becomes progressively more open

the second principle is to

impose on the trading nations

in the name of free trade

adherence not simply to an abstract

idea of a market economy

but to a particular version of the

market economy

thus for example

to outlaw under the label 'subsidies'

all the forms of strategic coordination

between governments and firms

that the countries now rich

used to become rich

or to incorporate into the rules

of free trade

the odious regime of intellectual property

developed since the late nineteenth

century that places many of the

technological innovations of greatest

value to humanity in the control of a

handful of big multinational businesses

we should replace this institutional

maximalism by an institutional minimalism

the greatest economic openness

with the least possible restraint

on national institutional experiments

including experiments in the way to

organize a market economy

a third principle

is to grant goods and capital

increasing freedom to roam the world

while imprisoning people in

the nation state

or in blocks of relatively homogenous

nation states

such as the European Union

freedom for labour to move could

never be instantaneously established

but things, money, and people

should gain freedom together

to cross national frontiers

in small, cumulative steps

there is no more powerful mechanism

by which to achieve greater

equalization in the world

the freedom of things

and of money to move

is sometimes useful

and sometimes harmful

but the freedom of people to move

is sacrosanct

because it is part of the process

by which humanity becomes

both unified and diverse

the fourth principle is that the

world trading system is being organized

on the pretence of universal free labour

no matter how oppressive

the conditions of economically

dependent wage labour in fact are

free labour must be really free

and in the future free labour must mean

the predominance of self employment

and cooperation over economically

dependent wage labour

this example of reconstruction of the

world trading system

illustrates a larger principle

the progressive program

that I have outlined

has as its ally

the construction of a world political

and economic order

more hospitable to alternatives

to divergence

to experiments

to heresies

than the order that is now established

the obstacles

consider an intellectual

and a spiritual obstacle

to a progressive program

like the one I have sketched

the prevailing ideas

in the whole field of social and

historical studies

are antagonistic to the exploration

of institutional alternatives

they have severed the link

between insight into the actual

and imagination of the possible

they have become

part of the problem

rather than part of the solution

sources of superstition

forming a chorus of fatalism

above all

we need to form

in political economy and legal analysis

the twin disciplines of

the institutional imagination

an aim of this progressive program

is to create a world in which trauma

no longer needs to be the

enabling circumstance of transformation

nevertheless, the institutions that

would diminish the dependence

of change upon crisis

themselves seem to depend for their

establishment upon crisis

only the imagination can break this

vicious circle

the task of the imagination is to do

the work of crisis without crisis

the cold calculus of interest must

be reinforced by the visionary impulse

by the prophetic voice

the goal of the progressives was

never just to humanize society

to attenuate its cruelties

and to redress its injustices

it was always also to divinize humanity

to raise us up to a greater life