Ralph Nader often calls himself a populist. But true populism doesn't just entail bashing corporations, it also means returning power to the people. Nader seems more interested in expanding the reach of litigation and regulation than in empowering citizens to solve their own problems. His is the populism of trial lawyers.
To be sure, Nader raises some important issues, from bosses who read our e-mail to the uprooting of communities in the global economy. Since the 1960's, moreover, Nader's approach has come to emphasize grass roots advocacy, not just legal activism.
In addition to tort lawyers, Nader is closely associated with advocacy networks mobilized over the last generation through door-to-door canvassing, direct mail solicitation and, more recently, the Internet. Typically, these mobilization efforts depend on a stark "us versus them" mentality that demonizes opponents and polarizes citizens instead of searching for common ground.
Ultimately, the problem with Nader-style populism is that it asks very little of citizens. It is based on a fairy land account of our nation's problems in which the people are innocents, the corporations are villains and democracy will come when we break them up. Instead of a populism of grievance and victimhood, we need a civic populism that teaches people how to work across lines of difference, how to understand problems in many-sided ways, how to listen to others with whom they disagree, how to think strategically and practically, not simply in emotive or righteous ways.
Building blocks are emerging for this sort of civic education and action. As Carmen Sirianni and Lew Friedland detail in their forthcoming book, Civic Innovation in America, less visible but far more nuanced patterns of civic action than advocacy and protest have developed over the past generation in fields like environmental restoration, community development, and health promotion.
In our own work at the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, we have learned that while young people's default mode is protest (young people, like others, often enter public life feeling aggrieved and powerless), good coaches can help them see the need for more sophisticated approaches -- what we call public work. Public work
involves skills such as mapping the environment -- its rules, its power relationships, its diverse interests -- and learning to work with people with whom they disagree. Such civic learning does not deny differences of power, or conflicts of interest. Yet on almost every issue, an approach that stresses practical action to advance the
good of all proves far more effective than simple advocacy or protest.
Above all, real populism centers on empowering citizens to solve their own problems, rather than treating them as victims or as passive consumers of "remedies" fashioned by lawyers and government agencies.
Ralph Nader has spoken passionately about the "commercialization of childhood," pointing to advertising aimed at children as young as five, without their parents' knowledge, with clothing lines like "Streetwalkers." "The old-model corporation never sold directly to kids, except maybe bubble gum. They let parents
decide what to buy for children," he said in his acceptance speech to the Greens. "Today the corporations are electronic child molesters, subjecting children to violence and low-grade sensuality."
The problem is that making corporations singularly responsible for the commercialization of childhood ignores our own complicity. The consumer culture is something we've created, not something imposed on us by "others."
Effective public remedies cannot be built on illusions of public innocence or assumptions of civic impotence.
When William Doherty of Minnesota's Family Social Sciences Department
began working with families in Wayzata on the problem of "overscheduling" -- kids' frenetic pace of sports, dance, and other activities that erode family time -- he uncovered the deeper pattern. Parents, worried about their children being left behind, push coaches for more practice. College admissions judge individual success.
Children judge each other's teams like they judge brand names. It
makes no sense focusing on who is to blame. Everyone is responsible.
Wayzata didn't look to the courts or to Washington for salvation.
Instead, it has launched a citizens movement -- Family Life 1st --
that works with coaches, ministers, and the media to bring under
control the forces that erode family life and sustain the culture of
excessive commercialism.
Family Life 1st is like a hologram for the approach required on
problems ranging from the environment to school reform and the
dangers of the Internet. Political leaders can call us to the tasks,
provide tools, and help generate civic education that teaches day to
day skills of public work and problem solving -- not simply knowledge
of government. Today's populism should not be mainly about fixing
blame; it must challenge citizens rather than pander to them. As Pogo put it,
we have met the enemy and he is us.
