Events

Liu, Hanauer Discuss “More What, Less How” Government at NDN Event

On March 9, NDN hosted a panel discussion featuring Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer, making their case for a new theory of progressive government, as first published in our Winter 2011 Issue [The “More What, Less How” Government, Issue #19].

By Elbert Ventura

Tagged Governmentprogressivism

On March 9, NDN hosted a panel discussion featuring Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer, making their case for a new theory of progressive government, as first published in our Winter 2011 Issue [“The “More What, Less How” Government,” Issue #19]. The panel, “Bold and Nimble: A 21st-Century Case for Ambitious Government,” debated Liu and Hanauer’s prescriptions, and argued the future of progressive governance.

In Democracy, Liu and Hanauer wrote:

Government is what a society creates to solve common problems that each of us alone could not solve. We agree with the right that the job of government is to maximize individual autonomy. We just believe that the way to do that is to maximize the trust, cooperation, and equal opportunity that frames up each individual’s starting prospects. We agree with the left that the job of government is to ensure fairness and justice. We just believe that the way to do that is to put more responsibility on people to govern themselves by using more local, less distant, and more responsive means.

E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post moderated the panel, which included Megan McArdle, business and economics editor for The Atlantic, and Michael Lind, co-founder of the New America Foundation. Lind also responded in the Spring 2011 of Democracy [“Federal Case,” Issue #20].

Read Liu and Hanauer’s essay here.

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Elbert Ventura is an associate editor at The Chronicle Review.

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