Obama, the debt deal and the tragedy of Generation Jones

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Generation Jones - a question of courage

In the latest issue of The Economist, the Lexington column ponders whether President Obama has, at any point in his presidency so far, demonstrated real political courage.

After weighing the evidence, Lexington concludes:

[Obama] made hope and audacity his running mates, so he should answer for their defection. With the exception of health reform the big fights—on global warming, immigration and the deficit—have been put on hold and many of the smaller ones ducked . . .

. . . Maybe Mr Obama will find the same raw courage [as some of his predecessors] when at last he thinks it warranted. All one can say is that it has not happened yet.

I was persuaded, even if the article led me to another uncomfortable conclusion. Obama’s lack of ideological clarity or, to put it more kindly, his propensity to synthesise all sides of an issue, might stem from to a lack of political courage. Other political leaders from Generation Jones - my generation - display similar characteristics [click here and here]. Might they too be lacking in courage?

The evidence isn’t encouraging. Last year, the then Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd (born 1957), flip-flopped on whether to bring in an emissions trading scheme, despite the fact that fighting climate change was meant to central to his government’s mission. His personal popularity sagged badly, providing the ALP caucus with an excuse to dump Rudd and bring in Julia Gillard.

In New Zealand, prime minister John Key (born 1961) is a popular and charismatic politician, but is so cautious that he has been dubbed “smile and wave” by his Labour opponents. On the other end of the political spectrum, Sir Roger Douglas has repeatedly criticised Key’s government for its “cowardice” and reluctance to take “tough decisions”.

Here in London, Lexington’s question about courage could just as fairly be asked about Mayor Boris Johnson (born 1964).

The baby boomers’ willingness to push boundaries and achieve greater personal, social and, later, economic freedom surely stemmed from the prosperous economic times in which they were raised. The more difficult economic environment of their formative years (the mid/late 1970s and early 1980s) and the ambiguous and uncertain spirit of the age could have caused members of Generation Jones to be less politically confident than their forebears.

But Lexington and I may both be rushing to judgment. The Economist article was written before the international coalition, which of course includes the US, imposed a no-fly ban on Libya – otherwise known as going to war. The Obama administration’s action on Libya has been criticised by some of the president’s political opponents [click here, and here]. The response from the American public has been somewhat ambivalent and they want no further military involvement in Libya. Lexington’s opinion of the president’s backbone may yet have to be revised upwards.

Julia Gillard (born 1961) is a member of Generation Jones, just like Rudd. She is now bringing in a carbon tax, after ruling it out during last year’s federal election campaign, and her Labor government’s poll ratings have collapsed as a result. Courageous, or what?

As for Key, he has promised to sell off some important government assets if his National-led government is returned at the November general election. He’s taking a big risk. Public anger at a large-scale privatisation programme helped to sink the fourth Labour government (1984-90). So far, however, Key’s proposals haven’t fired Kiwis up in the same way.

The leaders from Generation Jones may still be able to take pride in their political courage. But they - or at the least, the leaders from my side of the political fence - could have to claim that mantle in electoral defeat.

Analytical, pragmatic revolutionaries who see both sides - understanding the leaders from Generation Jones

Do you really know what you're getting from Generation Jones - the people who now rule much of the world?

Earlier this week, Cari Oke (a fellow Joneser) commented on how leaders from our generation are more likely than our forebears to strive for the greatest possible agreement when political choices have to be made.

As Gen Jonesers hover on either side of the half-century mark, are we seeing the telltale signs of our empathetic natures? . . . President Obama, born in 1961, is well known for his ability to see many sides of an issue and his belief that two sides can be brought together with a little help from a friend. Supreme Court nominee and Joneser Elena Kagan, born in 1960, continues to defy efforts at labeling. The best anyone can do is to call her a moderate.

For years, I’ve noticed and approved of the way "liberal-left" politicians from Generation Jones try seriously to follow political principles that are once “idealistic” and “pragmatic”. The obvious example, going right back to the “neoliberal” triumphs of the 1980s, are the concerted efforts to reconcile “social equity” with “economic efficiency”. Another example is the concerted effort that has been made over the last decade or so to synthesise “economic prosperity” and “environmental sustainability”.

But then I am, after all, a paid-up member of Generation Jones who has supported the New Zealand Labour Party and now the Liberal Democrats. And that may be one reason why I am more prepared than some Liberal Democrats to cut Nick Clegg (born 1967) some slack as he tries to frame the coalition government’s tough fiscal policies as progressive, as well as responsible. In today’s Guardian, Nick cites his conversion over fiscal consolidation as an example of accountable politics. Nick even says:

“I am a revolutionary but I am also a pragmatist.”

The latest example of the Jonesers' empathetic, thoughtful but somehow ambiguous brand of politics is Australia’s new prime minister, Julia Gillard. Born in 1961, she is the latest member of Generation Jones to take power. Her competence and professionalism are not seriously disputed. Nor is her ability to consult or to engage in serious dialogue on tricky policy issues. Sounding like a true Joneser, she has promised:

"We will consult, listen and encourage people to give their best and we will work through the nation's policy challenges with a calm, methodical and analytical approach."

In his first weeks in the top job, prime minister Gillard has cut a deal with the mining industry over resources taxation – trying to make the government’s “fairness” rhetoric work alongside the industry’s needs. But she has come across as less than forthright over border protection and the processing of refugees. And the commentators are now asking Gillard to explain what she really stands for and reminding us that you win elections by setting out a clear path to the future.

There’s an even bigger question around Julia Gillard – and Barack Obama and Nick Clegg for that matter. Even if another of Cari Oke’s observations about my generation sounds a little tongue-in-cheek, it still makes for uncomfortable reading.

While watching the implosion of Joneser General Stanley McChrystal’s career, one has to wonder if the Generation Jones ability to see both sides also allows us to play both sides. Does this characteristic come back to bite us in our once bell bottom clad butts? I could argue either way.

I hope that it doesn’t bite us anywhere. I am waiting and hoping for Barack Obama, Nick Clegg (though he's a deputy PM in a coalition government) and Julia Gillard to use their times in the sun to deliver a politics that is new and different in its substance. A competent, empathetic style of governance is most welcome. Using it to deliver the politics of the “soft heart” and the “hard head”, based on a more environmentally sustainable economy, would be great.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley

A few more reasons why my generation isn't saving the world

Over on Huffington Post, Will Bunch has an interesting piece about Generation Jones, the cohort of people born between 1954 and 1965. He argues that Generation Jones is coming to power all over the world. But he’s not satisfied that we’re trying hard enough to solve its problems. Bunch believes that pragmatism has won out over idealism because our underlying anxiety about careers and personal economic security has left Jonesers with an innate aversion to taking risks.

The Next Greatest Generation? Hardly. The reality is that Generation Jones is showing up just in time, when the planet really does need saving -- and we are blowing it, big time. The challenges faced not just by the United States but by the entire world -- global warming, a deadly addiction to fossil fuels, governments addled by debt yet unable to stop spending billions on weapons -- require bold, boat-rocking risk-takers, people who have looked into the abyss of humankind and are not afraid to make daring moves.

This is simply not my Generation Jones . . . We are careerists -- clinging to our conviction that we can change the world not by forceful ideas but by the mere force of our own often-coddled personalities, even if the ideas and passions that once animated our humanity have been buried under pages of resumes and cover letters.

Ouch. Bunch goes on to describe Barack Obama and his new supreme court nominee, Eliza Kagan, as case studies of our generation’s cautious careerism and reluctance. And he wonders if the progressive ideals of Obama, Kagan other Jonsesers have now lain dormant for so long that they might never rise again.

I have argued previously that the leaders from Generation Jones need to start putting their political cards on the table and showing what they stand for and what they are going to do with their time in the sun. That applies to leaders from the moderate left, like Barack Obama and Australia’s prime minister Kevin Rudd, and to those from the moderate right, like New Zealand’s prime minister, John Key. All have been criticized, including by their own sides, for not being bold or visionary enough.

So I can relate a lot of what Bunch says. I grew up in New Zealand and not the US. He may be exaggerating parts of his argument for effect. Yet I can relate to his basic argument. When I was at secondary school, in the late 1970s, the senior teachers gave us stern lectures about how gruesome the job market was going to be. They were correct. By the time we got to university, unemployment had reached levels unknown since the great depression of the 1930s. The two oil shocks added in inflationary pressures and made a grim economic cocktail. But in my home country’s case, Bunch may be going too far when he claims that for Generation Jones, “progressive ideals were buried”. For instance, most of our Generation Jonesers supported the ban on nuclear warships visiting New Zealand.

And I suspect that it’s more than just the graduate job market of the 1980s that has made the leaders from Generation Jones wary of taking big political risks and reluctant to embark on big policy projects. The broader sweeps of politics and the fates of previous risk takers and visionaries have been important too.

Take Barack Obama. He came of age during the triumph of Reagan and witnessed the death of post-war American liberalism. American politics was fundamentally transformed during the 1980s and Bill Clinton did not try to turn the clock back – or forwards.

Kevin Rudd would have seen Gough Whitlam’s Labor government come to office in 1972 promising big shake-ups, especially in social and foreign policy. But Whitlam and co flamed out after just three years. When Labor returned, in 1983, they were led by Bob Hawke. Hawke’s government achieved a great deal, especially in the economic areas. But he branded his administration as reformist rather than radical; Hawke’s leadership style was based on the quest for consensus rather than promoting grand ideological designs. When his successor, Paul Keating, tried to paint big pictures, Australians just wanted the family snapshot. In 1996, they showed Labor the door – and Rudd himself failed in his first attempt to enter parliament.

His opponents used to mock John Key’s lack of interest in New Zealand’s turbulent politics of the early 1980s. But he and his Joneser senior ministers remember all too well what happened in the 1990s, when their National Party abandoned the safety of the conservative middle ground and undertook major cuts in social spending and broke the promises they had made to superannuitants (pensioners). The fourth National government saw its popularity plummet and at the 1993 election saw nearly all of its huge majority melt away. For many years, the memories of those years provided their opponents with a powerful political weapon.

Now for the big questions: what have Obama, Rudd, Key and the other generation Jonesers who are running the world learned from their predecessors’ sometimes bitter experiences? How do they plan to apply that knowledge to the massive challenges they face – most notably in saving our environment for future generations? And how are their leadership styles different from those of the political leaders that Generation Jones watched on TV in the 1970s and 1980s?

I have a sneaking fear that, in different ways, they don’t know the answer to the first two questions and that the answer to the second is based more on electoral tactics – polls and focus groups – than a clear sense of political ideals and policy strategies.

Let’s hope this concern is misplaced. There may be a new cause for hope. The UK has a new coalition government, whose prime minister, deputy prime minister and half of cabinet were born between 1954 and 1965. Perhaps they will show us what my generation is really all about.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley

The lightsabre passes to a new generation of leaders

This week, we saw a real British revolution: the handover of power from a Labour government to the Conservative-Liberal Democrat adminstration, this country’s first coalition government since World War II.

But another transition took place this week, that may prove to be every bit as important. The baby boomers’ generation, embodied by the outgoing Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown (born 1951) and the party’s deputy leader, Harriett Harman (born 1950), were sent packing.

In their place came Conservative prime minister, David Cameron (born 1966) and Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg (born 1967). They are both representatives of what the American commentator Jonathan Pontell calls Generation Jones. This cohort was born between 1955 and 1967 and they are the real children and not the “flower children” of the 1960s, part of a demographic bridge that came between the “boomers” and Generation X, born between 1968 and 1980.

Pontell describes Generation Jones as:

practical idealists, forged in the fires of social upheaval while too young to play a part.

Yes, the UK has cabinet government, not a presidential system and some of the new coalition’s key players and senior office holders are not part of Generation Jones. The chancellor, George Osborne (born 1971) is a GenXer. The business secretary, Vince Cable from the Liberal Democrats, was born during World War II. Tory “big beast” Ken Clarke (born 1940) predates them all.

But the demographic tilt is unmistakeable. The foreign secretary, William Hague was born in 1961. The home secretary, Theresa May was born in 1956, the education secretary Michael Gove in 1967 and the defence secretary Liam Fox in 1961. On the Liberal Democrat side, the chief secretary to the Treasury, David Laws was born in 1965.

And the new parliament is dominated by Generation Jones. Dods Research has found that 291 of the 649 MPs elected so far were born between 1955 and 1967.

These UK politicians join other Jonesers who have reached the top of politics in recent years: Frances’s president Nicolas Sarkozy (born 1955), Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel (born 1954), Australia’s prime minister Kevin Rudd (born 1957), London’s mayor Boris Johnson (born 1964) and New Zealand’s prime minister John Key (born 1961).

What marks these leaders out is their efforts to leave behind old political battles, and, perhaps, core ideologies. Sarkozy would rather that France forgot all about Paris in May 1968. Key was too young to protest against the Vietnam war and, astonishingly, once said that he could not remember whether he was for or against the 1981 Springbok tour. And, of course, Barack Obama offered Americans the opportunity to move on from the culture wars that started in the 1960s. He came to prominence by declaring, “there is no red state America, there is no blue state America; there is the United States of America”.

But whether they stand on the moderate left or the moderate right, the leaders from Generation Jones have been less clear about defining what they stand for, as opposed to what they want to cast aside.

The UK’s new leaders seem to fit the Jones pattern. David Cameron defined himself by breaking with Thatcherism and insisting that there is such a thing as society after all. Nick Clegg is the first leader of the Liberal Democrats who has not belonged to either the Liberal Party or the SDP. Much of the analysis of the UK’s new coalition government has focussed on the prevailing “pragmatism” of Cameron and Clegg. [Click here, here and here.]

Yet there may be more to Britain’s Jonesers than pragmatic politics; the "new politics" is not value-free. The May 2010 issue of Prospect magazine features a lengthy article about what David Cameron stands for. The writer, Wendell Stevenson, concludes that Cameron is motivated by the need to serve and to lead but has not yet formed a clear vision of where he wants to take the country. Cameron can point to a big idea: the “big society”, based on community and volunteerism, even if he has not been able to explain what it really means.

Nick Clegg has written and spoken extensively about:

"a progressive politics [that is] about empowerment, reducing dependency on the state, increasing social mobility through individual empowerment, releasing power from the centre politically . . ."

Many times he has described his mission as to “change politics and change Britain.”

As an active Liberal Democrat who was born in 1962 – a Jones year -- I am, of course, biased about all of this. But no, I don’t think it’s not quite as simple as, “my leader has ideals and the Tory doesn’t”. The two leaders seem be in broad agreement about the sorts of ideas outilned above, and the experience of office will test them both, and force them to re-evaluate and re-think their ideas and their political strategies and tactics. For now,we need to be clear about how we got to this point.

After the election resulted in a hung parliament, Cameron reached out to Nick and offered to begin talks aimed at sharing power in government. They succeeded; the Lib Dems did very well, despite coming to the table with a poor hand. Whatever anyone thinks of the new alliance between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, nobody can doubt that for both parties, it’s a risk of historic dimensions. Both Cameron and Clegg have put themselves and their parties on the line to make the “new politics” a reality.

Practical idealism, or what?

Welcome to the age of Generation Jones.

Posted via web from Neil Stockley

Generation Jones leaders should put their cards on the table this year

We are seeing a major shift in political power. Having ruled much of the world for more than a decade, the baby boomers --usually seen as the age cohort born between 1946 and 1961 -- are now on their way out. The boomers are being replaced by what the social commentator Jonathan Pontell calls Generation Jones*, a sub cohort born between 1954 and 1965.* They form a bridge between the baby boomers and Generation X, born between 1961 and 1981.

Evidence of the new shift piled up during 2008. In the United States, Barack Obama (born 1961) trounced John McCain, who was born in 1936 and, therefore, is not a baby boomer. Earlier in the year, however, Obama saw off Hilary Clinton, born in 1947 and the queen of the boomers, to become the Democratic party’s standard-bearer. On January 20 2009, Obama replaced a baby boomer, George W. Bush, who himself followed Bill Clinton, another baby boomer, in 2001. Obama’s inauguration marked the end of 16 years of boomer rule.

In the race for London mayor, Conservative Boris Johnson (born 1964) ousted Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone (born 1945 and arguably a baby boomer, if only just).

In my home country, New Zealand, National’s John Key (born 1961) defeated three term Labour prime minister, Helen Clark (born 1950).

These three joined other Generation Jonesers at the top, like France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy (born 1955), Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel (born 1954), Australia’s prime minister Kevin Rudd (born 1957) and Sweden's prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (born 1965). According to Jonathan Pontell, two-thirds of EU and NATO leaders now come from this cohort. Several key figures in Obama’s administration are also Jonesers.

There’s more. In this year’s UK general election, due in 2010, prime minister Gordon Brown (born 1951) will almost certainly lose to Conservative leader David Cameron (born 1966).

The change in ruling generations could have a profound of the substance and the style of politics. Baby boomer politics were all about enhancing personal freedom and self-fulfilment. Their legacy is 1960s and 1970s feminism, gay rights, the fight against apartheid, a new push for indigenous peoples’ rights, a new look at nationalism in Asia (well, Vietnam). Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and their contemporaries also carried on and sealed in the pursuit of greater freedom in the economic sphere. So turbo-capitalism is part of the boomer legacy too.

The theory is that Generation Jones still wants to change the world, but they are less ideological and more pragmatic. Last April, Pontell explained:

". . . We are practical idealists, forged in the fires of social upheaval while too young to play a part . . .

". . . Our practical idealism was created by witnessing the often unrealistic idealism of the 1960s. And we weren't engaged in that era's ideological battles; we were children playing with toys while Boomers argued over issues. Our non-ideological pragmatism allows us to resolve intra-Boomer skirmishes and to bridge that volatile Boomer-GenXer divide. We can lead."

I was born in 1962, which makes me one of Generation Jones, and Pontell’s argument rings a lot of bells with me.

Last year, however, the new generation leaders were ‘pragmatic’ enough but kept the ‘idealistic’ part of the formula under wraps.

On the moderate “left”, for example, “practical idealism” looks more like old-fashioned political caution. This has been a theme of several commentaries on Barack Obama’s first year in office. Drew Westen, the author of The Political Brain and a self-described “leftist”, has bitterly lamented the lack of fire in Obama’s belly and his reluctance to take risks, “to take anybody on.” Given Obama’s record and the fact that Generation Jones is meant to be about a pragmatic pursuit of ideals, I don’t think any of that is especially surprising.

Westen has also slated the president for having “no vision, no message” and of simply not wanting to enunciate a progressive vision of where his country should be heading in the 21st century.

In my experience, when those on the “left” accuse one of their own of lacking a progressive vision, they usually mean that s/he doesn’t subscribe to their vision. Westen has a point though. Obama’s core political beliefs have always been a hard to pin down and his political message is more opaque now than it was during the campaign. Politics Daily’s Walter Shapiro has called the forces driving the Obama presidency “elusive”. He points to a “never show your cards vagueness” on key issues in health care reform, on top of a reluctance to challenge Wall Street and the bonus culture and concludes that Barack Obama remains, “more than any president in memory, an enigmatic figure who defies easy categorization.”

Analyses of Australia’s Kevin Rudd (in office since December 2007) tend to use phrases like “work in progress”, “voters still don’t really know him” and “lacks a narrative”.

Jonesers from the moderate “right” have been open to similar sorts of criticisms. John Key has remained popular in his first year and more in office, partly because he has eschewed economic radicalism and stuck to middle of the political road. But Key is now under some pressure to explain how he will reposition New Zealand’s economy for the difficult challenges ahead. [click here, and here].

As for David Cameron, he is not in power and that so it is unfair to judge him by the above standards. But I’ve yet to hear a convincing definition of “Cameronism”. The Tory leader’s core beliefs remain a mystery. Such a comment may seem predictable from the likes of me, but a recent issue of The Spectator contained some scathing (and well-argued) articles claiming that Cameron has no “big idea”.

And, can anybody tell me what Mayor Boris is trying to achieve?

Pontell may be correct about Generation Jones and the opportunities that lie before it. President Obama is not fighting the old culture wars dating from the 1960s. Rudd has tried to fashion a fresh approach to social democratic politics. John Key has jettisoned the type of neoliberal ideology that caused his predecessors to self-destruct during the 1990s. In his quest to detoxify the Tory brand, David Cameron does not define himself in Thatcher-era frames. All of this is defensible, from an electoral point of view.

But I’m still not sure about the values and drivers of the leaders from Generation Jones - what their “practical idealism” is really all about. Perhaps there will be some clearer answers in 2010.

* I have previously written just about the Baby Boomers and Generation X, while mentioning a sub-cohort from 1955-65, but am happy to stand corrected and consider the theory about a distinctive “Generation Jones”.