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Monday, May 07, 2007
Humble Submission For the CAP-Inclusion Debate
Responding to the new CAP anti-poverty plan, the folks at Inclusionist.org have started up an interesting debate on how to talk about, think about, and address poverty. This post should get you caught up.
Call me a kool-aid drinker, but I'm taken in by the Inclusionist people. I like the way they think, perhaps more so than the way they name things. I mean, the term "inclusion" just sounds too social, when we're really talking about pocketbook, security, and opportunity issues. Their work's cut out for them on that front, if they ever want the term and their definition of it to become mainstream.
But they have two advantages- one, I like the way they frame poverty and economic issues. They think it's about citizenship and reciprocity, as opposed to the charity-oriented, "addressing poor people's needs" frame that seems to dominate the discourse in Washington and beyond. In a country without a strong socialist tradition, where people with "needs" are considered lazy, this alternative frame would seem to play in Peoria, as it were, but it might just be that it's more in line with my own still-developing worldview.
I also think their way of thinking changes poverty reduction from a moral obligation to a moral imperative. When poverty's about reciprocity, you can't ignore it. They're helping you out, so you have to help them out. This basic idea isn't just Inclusion's- it's the "we're all in it together" people, the "common good" types, the New New Deal economic security people, and the liberal communalists. There was lots of talk about these ideas in the anti-poverty community pre-November 2006, but since then I haven't heard much about them.
Second, their policy ideas would affect more than just low-wage workers- and they actually would help low-wage workers. The energy in the CAP proposal is on targeting low-wage workers, though there are some nods to more inclusive policies. Inclusion's proposal would distribute that energy more broadly, addressing real problems for both low and moderate-income earners and possible bringing them together in a coalition with more political muscle. Too often these types of poverty reduction plans leave low-income workers behind because everything's for the middle class (like the tax break bonanzas that Third Way would have us promote). But it seems like so far, the folks at Inclusion are maintaining some sort of balance.
This isn't to say that there's anything really wrong with the CAP proposal- it's incredibly comprehensive and very much a product of the post-1996 environment, appropriately focusing much more on opening up opportunities for low-wage workers than guaranteeing them an income. It just seems like it's not enough. And sometimes I wish the Inclusionists (gotta love that they're an "ist" group) spoke more about health care, education, and debt costs...
Posted by Matt Lewis
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