Failed Revolutions from Both the Left and the Right

In a recent column, The Broken Society, NY Times columnist David Brooks discussed twin revolutions that have occurred over the past few decades.

First, there was the cultural revolution from the Left, which liberated people from society's traditional morality, and elevated the importance of an individual's rights over that of one's responsibilities.

Second, there was the market revolution from the Right, which promoted globalization and deregulation and negatively impacted local, small business.

Brooks argues that, together, these revolutions created unintended consequences like greater bureaucratic centralization, weakened community ties, and increased social isolation and disenfranchisement.

Brooks referenced the ideas of British writer Phillip Blond as a possible solution. Blond proposes a three-pronged response: remoralize the market, relocalize the economy, and recapitalize the poor. He outlines the following specifics:

This would mean passing zoning legislation to give small shopkeepers a shot against the retail giants, reducing barriers to entry for new businesses, revitalizing local banks, encouraging employee share ownership, setting up local capital funds so community associations could invest in local enterprises, rewarding savings, cutting regulations that socialize risk and privatize profit, and reducing the subsidies that flow from big government and big business.

These are the types of ideas and proposals that we need to focus on in the struggle to overcome the challenges facing America today.