Fall 2017, No. 46

They’re at it again. On the one side, absolutists who scream that if you’re not for single payer, you’re a sellout. On the other, incrementalists retort that no, it’s you who are being completely unrealistic and naive. It’s just going to get worse.
There is a middle ground, which health-care expert Harold Pollack lays out in this issue, if people choose to accept it. It begins with recognizing that single payer is one means to an end. The end—the principle—is universal coverage. Single payer can get us there, but so can other systems, modeled more for example on Germany’s. As Pollack argues, we should be debating which system—provided it guarantees universality—has the best chance of becoming reality in the United States.

Reality in the United States, meanwhile, has become . . . surreal. We asked five distinguished historians, among them Democracy board member Sean Wilentz, what to make of this current moment, and what past moment (if any) it compares to. The results were interesting, surprising—and, inasmuch as no one said the late 1850s, reassuring.

Two more important feature essays: Board member and Brookings Scholar Isabel Sawhill makes a strong case that liberals spend too much time debating taxation and redistribution, relative to their actual ability to change society. She envisions a post-redistributionist liberalism, one that tackles corporate structures, that she argues could have greater impact. And another board member, Richard Vague, takes a hard look at the state and local pension crisis. With his usual empirical rigor, he finds that pension-fund managers have no good choices, but one or two options that may help them avert future calamity.
Beyond the feature well, we’re delighted to welcome to our pages for the first time Letty Cottin Pogrebin, the distinguished feminist writer, who responds to our earlier exchange on whether a progressive woman can ever be elected President. Richard Parker, the esteemed biographer of John Kenneth Galbraith, assays a new Arthur Schlesinger biography. Also Thomas Goetz reviews Franklin Foer’s new book on how the tech powers are hurting journalism and society, and Samuel Bagenstos reviews Richard Rothstein’s widely discussed history of how the government helped sustain segregation.

Back Issues Archive

Symposium

What Compares to Trump

By The Editors

1 MIN READ

The Gilded Age, Pt. II

By Allyson Hobbs

6 MIN READ

A Cautionary Tale...Perhaps

By David Nasaw

6 MIN READ

The Democratic Autocrat

By Nancy Isenberg Andrew Burstein

7 MIN READ

"Civilization in the Highest?"

By Brandon R. Byrd

5 MIN READ

No, There Is No Precedent

By Sean Wilentz

5 MIN READ

Features

Post-Redistribution Liberalism

Changing the tax structure, even radically, won’t really change much. We need to look to pre-tax inequities to transform society.

By Isabel Sawhill

26 MIN READ

The Monster Eating Our States and Cities

To feed the pension beast, state and local governments are starving education and infrastructure. But yes, something can be done.

By Richard Vague

28 MIN READ

Single Payer Is Not a Principle

The principle is universal coverage. There are a number of ways to get there. We need to remember this.

By Harold Pollack

30 MIN READ

Book Reviews

Racism Didn't Stop at Jim Crow

Richard Rothstein’s history of the racist housing policies of governments—yes, even liberal ones—is searing, revealing, and embarrassing.

By Samuel R. Bagenstos

19 MIN READ

At the Mercy of the Tech Gods

Franklin Foer offers many keen insights, but ultimately his case against the tech giants is too small-bore.

By Thomas Goetz

15 MIN READ

The Age of Arthur

A new biography reminds us why Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and his cohort fell out of fashion, and why that judgment was unfair.

By Richard Parker

14 MIN READ

That Greedy Upper-Middle Class

Will the top 20 percent be willing to forego some of their advantages so that others may rise? Tough one.

By Heather Boushey

11 MIN READ

Responses

A Woman Can Be President, Right?

Feminists were devastated last November. But it’s not fated to be this way forever. A response to Susan Madrak and Kathleen Geier.

By Letty Cottin Pogrebin

12 MIN READ

Recounting

Can We Talk to "Them"?

Like it or not, democratic citizenship imposes a burden on us: to perfect an imperfect union. Retreating into our own safe zones won’t accomplish that.

By Ethan Porter

9 MIN READ

Back Issues Archive