The Common Good

by Robert B. Reich

Is there a common good that still binds us together as Americans? That it’s even necessary to ask shows how far we’ve strayed. Today, some think we’re connected by the whiteness of our skin, or our adherence to Christianity, or the fact that we were born in the United States. I believe we’re bound together by the ideals and principles we share, and the mutual obligations those principles entail.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms”—freedom of speech, of worship, from want, and from fear.

THE COMMON GOOD consists of our shared values about what we owe one another as citizens who are bound together in the same society—the norms we voluntarily abide by, and the ideals we seek to achieve.

A concern for the common good—keeping the common good in mind—is a moral attitude. It recognizes that we’re all in it together. If there is no common good, there is no society.

Americans sharply disagree about exactly what we want for America or for the world. But we must agree on basic principles—such as how we deal with our disagreements, the importance of our democratic institutions, our obligations toward the law, and our respect for the truth—if we’re to participate in the same society. It’s our agreement to these principles that connects us, not agreement about where these principles lead.

The market is itself a human creation—a set of laws and rules that define what can be owned and traded, and how. Government doesn’t “intrude” on the “free market.” It creates the market. Government officials—legislators, administrators, regulators, judges, and heads of state—must decide on and enforce such laws and rules in order for a market to exist. Without norms for the common good, officials have no way to make these decisions other than their own selfish interests.

Truth itself is a common good. Through history, one of the first things tyrants have done is attack independent truth-tellers—philosophers (Plato), scientists (Galileo), and the free and independent press—thereby confusing the public and substituting their own “facts.” Without a shared truth, democratic deliberation is hobbled.

Most basically, the common good depends on people trusting that most others in society will also adhere to the common good, rather than lie or otherwise take advantage of them. In this way, civic trust is self-enforcing and self-perpetuating.

History has shown that the more commitment to the common good there is within a society, the more willing are its inhabitants to accept disruptions that inevitably accompany new ideas, technologies, opportunities, trade, and immigration. That’s because these inhabitants are more likely to trust that the disruptions won’t unfairly burden them, and that they stand to gain more than lose by them.

But when that trust is undermined or was never there to begin with, disruptive change can generate widespread anger and fear, and even political upheaval. Under these circumstances, virtuous circles can reverse themselves and become vicious cycles. If those who feel left behind view the system as rigged against them, they can push open societies into becoming closed and autocratic.

Societies experiencing economic stresses and widening inequalities are particularly vulnerable to tyrants intent on undermining democratic institutions by lying repeatedly, accusing critics of conspiring against “the people,” fueling racial and ethnic divisions, and inciting rabid nationalism.

Our core identity—the most precious legacy we have been given by the generations who came before us—is the ideals we share, the good we hold in common. If we are losing our national identity, it is not because we are becoming browner or speak in more languages than we once did. It is because we are losing our sense of the common good.

The common good has nothing whatever to do with the United States being “the best.” It’s not about securing borders, erecting walls, and keeping others out. It is not xenophobic. It doesn’t focus on exclusion at all. To the contrary, the common good is about inclusion—joining together to achieve common goals.

As George Orwell dryly observed, a nationalist, “although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, is typically uninterested in what happens in the real world.” True patriots, by contrast, are deeply curious about, and open to, the rest of humanity.

Patriotism based on the common good does not pander to divisiveness. True patriots don’t fuel racist or religious or ethnic divisions. They aren’t homophobic or sexist or racist. To the contrary, true patriots confirm the good that we have in common. They seek to strengthen and celebrate the “We” in “We the people.”

Education is a public good that builds the capacity of a nation to wisely govern itself, and promotes equal opportunity. Democracy depends on citizens who are able to recognize the truth, analyze and weigh alternatives, and civilly debate their future, just as it depends on citizens who have an equal voice and equal stake in it. Without an educated populace, a common good cannot even be discerned. This is fundamental.

We must defend the right to vote and ensure that more citizens are heard, not fewer. We can’t hate our government, for it is the means by which we can come together to help solve our common problems. We may not like everything the government does, and we justifiably worry when special interests gain too much power over it, but our obligation is to work to improve government, not undermine it.

Moral choices logically involve duties to others, not just calculations about what’s best for ourselves. When members of a society ask, “What is the right or decent thing to do?,” they necessarily draw upon understandings of these mutual obligations. While our contemporary culture of self-promotion, iPhones, selfies, and personal branding churns out a fair number of narcissists, it is our loyalties and attachments that define who we are.

They didn’t try to create the most efficient system of governance, or one that would generate the most wealth. They wanted a system that would produce the most virtuous people. “Is there no virtue among us?” asked James Madison, rhetorically. “If there be not, no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea.” In Federalist No. 71, Madison wrote that “it is a just observation that the people commonly INTEND the PUBLIC GOOD” (emphasis in the original), and in Federalist No. 45 he claimed that “the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object.”

Almost two centuries later, Martin Luther King, Jr., applied the same logic to the struggle for civil rights in America. “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”

The good that emerged from self-government was not mainly about generosity toward those in need. It was about giving others an equal chance to succeed.

Our compact is not just with those who are alive today. It’s also with those who have come before us and those yet to be born. To the founding fathers, the Constitution and our system of government established a moral bond connecting generations. “There seems…to be some foundation in the nature of things, in the relation which one generation bears to another, for the descent of obligations from one to another,” wrote James Madison. “Equity may require it. Mutual good may be promoted by it. And all that seems indispensable in stating the account between the dead and the living is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.”

It was that covenant—not any particular race, religion, or ethnicity—that gave America its ideals and identity. “The American trick,” political philosopher Benjamin Barber has noted, “was to use the fierce attachments of patriotic sentiment to bond a people to high ideals.”

Much is made of the American political distinctiveness of a Constitution inspired by theory rather than by tradition. But there is a subtler yet equally profound cultural distinctiveness as well, a national sense of identity rooted in a history of self-told mythology. Political scientist Carl Friedrich captured the distinction in 1935: “To be an American is an ideal, while to be a Frenchman is a fact.”

To summarize, the good we have had in common has been a commitment to respecting the rule of law, including its intent and spirit; to protecting our democratic institutions; to discovering and spreading the truth; to being open to change and tolerant of our differences; to ensuring equal political rights and equal opportunity; to participating in our civic life together, and sacrificing for that life together. Note that these are not the constitutional rights and freedoms we possess as citizens. They are the essential elements of what we owe one another as Americans. We passionately disagree about all manner of things. But we must share these commitments to each other because they are—or have been—what makes us a people. Although we have often fallen short of achieving them, they are ideals that we have strived to realize. They have informed our judgments about right and wrong, decisions we make that could affect others, and our understanding of our obligations as citizens. They have bound us together. They are large and noble obligations. The central moral question of our age is whether we are still committed to them.

When the only purpose of business is to make as much money as possible in the shortest time frame, regardless of how it’s done, the common good is easily sacrificed. In pursuit of high profits, whatever it takes, CEOs and the corporations they run have ignored or circumvented the intent of laws to protect workers, communities, the environment, and consumers. They abandoned the principle of equal economic opportunity that underlay their obligations to all stakeholders, and have too often put themselves first.

The third chain reaction eroding the common good came as a consequence of the first two. Whatever-it-takes politics removed all constraints on gaining and keeping political power. Whatever it takes to make big money eliminated all checks on unbridled greed. Put them together and what did we get? We got money pouring into politics in order to change the rules of the game in favor of big corporations and the wealthy, so they could rake in even more.

Not surprisingly, the day-to-day decisions emanating from Congress and the White House no longer reflect the views of average Americans. After examining 1,799 policy issues in detail, two eminent researchers, Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Professor Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, concluded that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

Whatever-it-takes-to-win politics disregarded what had been the unwritten rules of good government, based on equal political rights—enabling the most powerful players to extract all political gains. Whatever it takes to maximize profits rejected what had been the unwritten rules of corporate responsibility, based on obligations to all stakeholders—allowing CEOs, Wall Street, and investors to extract all financial gains. Whatever it takes to rig the economy dismissed what had been the unwritten rule that the “free market” should work for everyone—permitting the most powerful economic actors to extract almost all economic gains. As a result, the key political and economic institutions of our society—political parties, corporations, and the free market—have abandoned their commitment to the common good.

Another consequence is that society shifts from a system of mutual obligations to a system of private deals. Rather than being founded in the common good, political and social relationships increasingly are viewed as contracts. People ask less about their obligations in various situations, more about what’s in it for them. When it’s all about making deals, one “gets ahead” by getting ahead of others. Duty is replaced by self-aggrandizement and self-promotion. Calls for sacrifice or self-denial are replaced by personal demands for better deals.

A president’s most fundamental responsibility is to uphold and protect our system of government. Trump has weakened that system. When, as a presidential nominee, he said that a particular federal judge shouldn’t be hearing a case against him because the judge’s parents were Mexican, Trump did more than insult a member of the judiciary; he attacked the impartiality of America’s legal system. When Trump threatened to “loosen” federal libel laws so he could sue news organizations that were critical of him and, later, to revoke the licenses of networks critical of him, he wasn’t just bullying the media; he was threatening the freedom and integrity of the press. When, as president, he equated neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members with counter-demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, by blaming “both sides” for the violence, he wasn’t being neutral. He was condoning white supremacists, thereby undermining equal rights. When he pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, for a criminal contempt conviction, he wasn’t just signaling it’s okay for the police to engage in brutal violations of civil rights; he was also subverting the rule of law by impairing the judiciary’s power to force public officials to abide by court decisions. When he criticized NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem, he wasn’t just asking that they demonstrate their patriotism; he was disrespecting their—and, indirectly, everyone’s—freedom of speech. In all these ways, Tru...

Leadership as trusteeship extends way beyond ethics. It goes to the heart of the job. It requires a different way of thinking about the central obligation of leading any institution. Part of the responsibility of elected or appointed government officials, of corporate executives, and of leaders of nonprofits and other major organizations in society must be to enhance the public’s trust in their institutions and in our political economic system as a whole. Their success should not be measured solely in how much money they or their organizations make or raise, how much power they accumulate, or how much influence they wield. They must also be judged by the legacy of trust they pass onward.

Modern America seems to have misplaced honor and shame. We often honor people who haven’t advanced the common good but have merely achieved notoriety or celebrity, or amassed great wealth or power. We shame people not for having exploited the common good for personal gain but for failing to conform to prevailing ideas about fashion or coolness, or for associating with the wrong people. If we’re to revive the common good we must use honor and shame appropriately, bringing public attention to virtuous behavior and public condemnation to behavior that erodes public trust.

We can honor them with our respect and appreciation. We can honor them by making sure they earn enough money to live on. We can also honor them by raising public awareness of the importance of the work they do. We have Academy Awards for actors, directors, and screenwriters; Nobel Prizes in math and science; culinary awards for chefs; Olympic awards for athletes; Kennedy Center honors for the performing arts. Why not awards for upholding and strengthening the common good?

Why shouldn’t universities confer honorary degrees on these unsung American heroes? Why doesn’t the United States, as does Britain, issue honors to a thousand citizens each year who have made significant contributions to the common good? Their purpose would be to continually remind us of what it means to work for the common good, to offer examples of civic behavior we want to encourage, and to raise public consciousness of what we owe each other as members of the same society. Such public honoring could be a corrective to what we now do—blindly and automatically bestow honors on rich philanthropists because they’re rich, and celebrities because they’re celebrated.

If we’re serious about restoring the common good, congressional shaming must be followed by legislation and criminal prosecutions that confirm the standard of behavior we expect. Such criminal investigations must be directed against individual wrongdoers rather than at companies as a whole. Corporations cannot feel shame; only individuals can.

Private morality concerns what people do in private, often involving sex—sex between unmarried people or gay people, adultery, contraception, abortion, gay marriage, even which bathroom a transgendered person must use. Public morality involves what people do when they hold positions of power and public trust.

A public morality that protects our democratic institutions, cherishes the truth, accepts our differences, ensures equal rights and equal opportunity, and invites passionate engagement in our civic life gives our own lives deeper meaning. It enlarges our capacities for attachment and love. It informs our sense of honor and shame. It equips us to be virtuous citizens.

We must not normalize public lying. The common good requires vigilance against it, and the summoning of public shame when we find it. It is a central obligation of politicians as well as journalists, researchers, scientists, and academicians to inform the public of the truth, and to identify lies without fear of retribution. It is the civic responsibility of all of us to check the facts we read or hear, to find and depend upon reliable sources, to share the truth with others, and hold accountable those who lie to us or suppress the truth.

When we accept lies as facts, or illogic as logic, we lose the shared reality necessary to tackle our common problems. We become powerless.

Print and broadcast news outlets must demonstrate to the public that their news stories are produced accurately and intelligently. They need codes of ethics with clearly stated processes for checking facts and correcting errors, and ways to ensure that the public is made aware of such corrections. They must clearly separate facts and analysis from opinions and advocacy, and inform readers and viewers of any news or news-gathering that is funded by organizations with a stake in what’s reported. They need ombudsmen to investigate public complaints about their coverage, along with public editors who serve as paid in-house critics. These steps are necessary not only to rebuild public trust, but also to restore the media to its rightful place in our democracy and protect the truth as a common good.

We have a responsibility to educate ourselves and others about how to find the truth, and how to assess the news we receive thoughtfully and critically. We need to learn better how to recognize lies so we can refrain from sharing them and warn others. We need to demand that the leaders of news-gathering organizations—not just print and broadcast media, but also giant tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter—understand their role as trustees of the common good, and take appropriate steps to guard the truth. As I’ve said, we should honor truth-tellers—whistle-blowers, investigative reporters, and courageous public servants who tell us what we need to know rather than what we want to know. And we should shame the liars and truth-suppressors—those who use their wealth, power, and positions of authority to mislead the public.

Our children need to understand themselves not just as individuals seeking self-expression and lucrative careers but also as citizens responsible for upholding our core common values. They need to learn to respect but also reform the major institutions of our society. They should be equipped to deliberate with others over what is best for our society and the world, and to civilly and respectfully disagree.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a woman was said to have asked Benjamin Franklin what sort of government the delegates had created for the people. He replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” What did “keeping it” require? More than anything else, education. “Ignorance and despotism seem made for each other,” Jefferson warned. But if the new nation could “enlighten the people generally…tyranny and the oppressions of mind and body will vanish, like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”

The person most credited with founding American public schooling, Massachusetts educator Horace Mann, also linked public education to democracy. “A republican form of government, without intelligence in the people,” he wrote, “must be, on a vast scale, what a mad-house, without superintendent or keepers, would be on a small one.” Mann believed it important that public schools educate all children together, “in common.” The mix of ethnicities, races, and social classes in the same schools would help children learn the habits and attitudes of citizenship.

Every child must also understand the difference between how our system should work and how it actually works, and why we all have an obligation to seek to bridge that gap. Which means they must grasp the meaning and importance of justice—of equal political rights and equal economic opportunity, and how these two goals are related. They need to see how the economy is organized, how its rules are made, and what groups and interests have the most influence in making those rules. They must learn to be open to new thoughts and ideas, and practice tolerance toward different beliefs, ethnicities, races, and religions. They need to learn about basic human rights, and America’s responsibilities in the world.

Such an education must, finally, encourage civic virtue. It should explain and illustrate the profound differences between doing whatever it takes to win and acting for the common good; between getting as much as one can get for oneself and giving back to society; between assuming everyone is in it for themselves and understanding that we’re all in it together; between seeking personal celebrity, wealth, or power and helping to build a better society for all. An education in civic virtue should explain why the latter choices are morally necessary.

Young people need to move out of their bubbles of class, race, religion, and ideology, and to go to places and engage in activities where people look different from themselves, and have different beliefs and outlooks from their own. They must learn to communicate with them. They need to learn how to learn from them. Two years of required public service would give young people an opportunity to learn civic responsibility by serving the common good directly. It should be a duty of citizenship.