Is Davey Human?

David Brooks has become a master at defeating his own ideas with his own words. He sounds like an android. Phrases like "human capital policies," "the nuclear core of human capital formation," and "building human capital" all but suck the life out of ideas supposedly aimed at making people's lives better.

Maybe, Davey, if you sounded half-way human you would hold a bit more sway. Not much more, mind you. Because underneath your pseudo-babble is a whole lot of oversimplified solutions and not much to embrace.

Oh, yes. I almost forgot. When you state, "I may be a sucker, but I think they're wrong," just thought I'd confirm it for you -- you most definitely are a sucker, and "they" most definitely are right.


Investing in Human Futures
By David Brooks
The New York Times

Imagine a classroom of first graders. Now imagine we could get every kid in that classroom to graduate from college, and that we could get every kid in every classroom to graduate from college. Don’t you think that’s the most important thing we could do to make America a richer and fairer place?

Some people, actually, don’t think that. Some people don’t think wage stagnation is mainly about education and skills. They think the economy is so broken, the Republican Party so malevolent and all-controlling, that almost all the gains would go to the top 5 percent or 1 percent anyway.

I may be a sucker, but I think they’re wrong.

I may be a sucker, but I doubt we can achieve broad-based social mobility unless workers possess the skills that a global economy now rewards. I may be a sucker, but I suspect the most important thing we can do to increase social mobility is to come up with second-generation human capital policies.

The first-generation policies gave people access to schools, colleges and training facilities. The second-generation policies will help them develop the habits, knowledge and mental traits they need to succeed once they are there.

That means, first, strengthening the family, the nuclear core of human capital formation. Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review points out that investments in human capital are overtaxed. He suggests raising the child tax credit to $5,000. That would be part of a plan to lighten the tax burden on families while they are raising kids and shift it to when they are done. It would enable more parents to stay home if they wanted and invest more in those crucial early years.

Second, it means strengthening marriage. Only half of American kids can expect to live with both biological parents at age 15 (compared with two-thirds of kids in Western Europe). That has calamitous effects on education and development. There are many cultural ways to strengthen marriage, but financially, the government could extend the earned income tax credit to single males. That would not only induce more young men to enter the labor force, it would also make them more marriageable.

Third, it means encouraging people to think about the future. Senator Jeff Sessions has a proposal (similar to a program earlier supported by Senators Santorum and Schumer, and others) that would give every child $1,000 at birth for a savings account, which could then be built up over a lifetime. Among other things, that sort of asset building awakens a sense of future possibilities.

Fourth, children from disorganized homes need quality preschool. As a mountain of research has shown, children who have not developed mental traits like self-control by age 3 are much less likely to exercise them later on. Their prospects are permanently diminished.

Fifth, schools need to be tailored to the way children actually are. Different human beings have radically different learning styles. So long as diverse individuals are forced to sit in the same classroom and endure uniform teaching techniques, they’ll underperform. It doesn’t matter whether the school is public, charter or administered by Martians.

I’m hinting at an agenda that is socially conservative and economically progressive, because when it comes to building human capital, the two go hand in hand. To pay for this stuff, I’d trail along behind Sebastian Mallaby of The Washington Post: Cut the mortgage interest deduction so it doesn’t subsidize people who want million-dollar homes, and reform the savings and health insurance tax incentives that subsidize rich people to do things they’d do anyway. I’d also keep the inheritance tax (I don’t want a bunch of spoiled heirs starting lefty foundations).

When you ask free-market purists about wage stagnation, they either deny it’s a problem or brag about how Republicans have increased disposable income by reducing the tax burden. When you ask orthodox liberals about wage stagnation, they never tell you exactly what they would do to counteract the epic forces of globalization and technological change, but they seem to imply they can restructure the economy with the right trade, minimum-wage and union rules to create middle-class wealth.

But this debate is not going to be won either by the free-market fatalists or by the angry but amorphous populists. It’ll be won by the human capital reformers, the alliance of progressive conservatives and conservative progressives (like the Clintonites) who believe that the market fundamentally works and that social mobility requires what it has always required, skill and effort.

Photo credit: David Brooks. (The New York Times)

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