It's the Empty Materialism, Stupid
In bad times, "outsider" candidates run against the economic status quo. In
good times, it seems they strain to do exactly the same thing. Probably the
most distinct theme to emerge thus far among the leading challengers to
quasi-incumbent Al Gore in the 2000 presidential race is that the material
wealth of America in the 1990s has brought with it a sense of spiritual
discontent.
The official slogan of the George W. Bush campaign is "Prosperity With a
Purpose," which W. explains by pointing out that "prosperity alone is simple
materialism." In his "armies of compassion" address in Indianapolis, he
elaborated a bit more. "The invisible hand works many miracles," Bush said.
"But it cannot touch the human heart."
Bill Bradley has been saying essentially the same thing. On "Meet the Press"
Sunday, Tim Russert asked Bradley to identify the biggest problem confronting
American society in the next century. Bradley cited two issues: race and the
lack of meaning. "There is something that's going on in the country that is
widely felt, and that is people searching for some meaning in their life that
is deeper than the material," he said. "I think that that is a profound
reaction to the materialism of our time and to the hollowness of life if you're
only interested in material things."
It's hard to disagree with such sentiments, but it's even harder to
understand why Bush and Bradley are turning them into focuses of their
campaigns. Don't they remember Jimmy Carter's malaise speech? Don't they
remember Hillary Clinton's "politics of meaning" fiasco? Americans tend to be
allergic to politicians' dabbling in vague spiritual criticism, and for good
reason. We're electing someone to run the government, not minister to the
condition of our souls.
You also have to wonder just whose feelings these guys are trying to voice.
Even in flush times like these, it's hard to imagine that a large segment of
the electorate feels burdened by the spiritual side effects of excessive
wealth. While presidential candidates spend a good deal of time among people
with too much money on their hands (they're called thousand dollar
contributors), this is surely not a significant voting block.
But perhaps such comments are intended less for those who feel afflicted by
this particular form of ennui than for the larger group capable of resenting
the rich. On this reading, denouncing the spiritual fallout of excess wealth is
a sophisticated variety of economic populism tailored to an audience of people
who fully hope to get rich themselves. Like greed, materialism is a vice that
tends to afflict those with more money than oneself. The problem isn't money.
It's the values of people who have money. Here the multimillionaires Bradley
and Bush may have stumbled upon something rather clever: a kind of rich
candidate's class warfare. Shunning shallow materialism is a way to express
contempt for the upper class while being a member of the upper class.
Still, the candidates are going to have trouble pulling this off. The last
rich president to benefit from class warfare was Franklin Roosevelt. FDR could
do this not just because of his sense of noblesse oblige but because he had
policies to propose that would rein in the rich. Bush and Bradley don't have
any practical suggestions. Instead of taxing and regulating the "malefactors of
great wealth" into submission, they merely suggest we feel sorry for them.
Al Gore hasn't said anything about empty materialism yet, so he still may
have a chance to differentiate himself. If I were he, I think I'd respond by
saying that excessive prosperity is now a problem for just a few--and that the
next president should see to it that it afflicts as many of us as possible.
