March 2007: Far from the Beltway, and Lovin' It!

The headlines and talking heads are shrieking about the "first 100 hours" of the new Democrat majority in Congress, President George W. Bush's latest drop in the polls, and the jockeying for position by presidential candidates. It reminds me again of how wonderful it is to be running a think tank far, far away from Washington's "beltway."

Beltway Echo Chamber

Washington is often referred to as 60 (or 87, or 100) square miles surrounded by reality. What goes on inside the amoeba-shaped zone defined by Highway 495 is nonstop politics. When one political party takes over control of a branch of government, the whole town buzzes with speculation and worry. Who will be the new chair of this committee or that one? What staff will stay and who will get the ax?

When both chambers of Congress switch political control--well, it's like Halloween and the Fourth of July on the same day ... every day, for months.

Adding to the lather is a lame duck president with approval ratings so low his pizza probably doesn't get delivered within 30 minutes. Such administrations hemorrhage political appointees looking to start or return to careers as lobbyists, while a strange and lesser breed of individual is eager to sign on for the shortened cruise, viewing it as perhaps their only or last chance to serve a president.

All the while, the newspapers are crammed with stories about the Democrats' bizarre agenda and the Republicans' lame counter-thrusts. Did you know that special-interest groups run television and print ads only in the Washington, DC market, trying to persuade politicians not to gore their oxen? They add to the surreal nature of the place.

The Heartland Institute is located in Chicago, some 600 miles from Washington, DC. The climate is colder but the political debate is, thankfully, cooler as well. I like to think that, here in "the heartland," we're better able to keep things in perspective and not get all wrapped up in what politicians are yapping about at the moment.

Milton Friedman

On January 29, for example, several Heartlanders attended a memorial service for Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. There was no talk of recent politics inside the stone Gothic walls, only of great ideas and a man's courage to speak them.

Wonderful presentations were delivered in one of the most remarkable public spaces on the continent, evoking the timeless values and ideas that were central to Milton Friedman's life. "No frills, no pettiness, no fear" was how Arnold Harberger, a former student, summed up Friedman's philosophy of life.

"A gentle intellectual giant" said Michael Walker, of a man who didn't reach 5 feet in height. A man, according to University President Robert Zimmer, who "embodied the University's values and ideas" and whose life and career epitomized the "tolerance for unconventional ideas that is the hallmark of our university."

I left the ceremony a recharged man, reminded of what my professors at the University of Chicago had tried to instill in me, and of what Friedman himself had counseled me more than once. Friedman taught that "economics is something important," said Gary Becker, another former student of Friedman and himself a Nobel Laureate. "It is not a game played by clever academics."

No matter how much politicians and pundits might hope otherwise.

Booker T. Washington

While many people are fixated on Washington, DC, much of Heartland's staff lately as been fixated on a different Washington: Booker T. We're working to produce a book and a series of educational videos using footage from a conference Heartland cohosted with The New Coalition for Economic and Social Change last June.

Booker T. Washington was the most influential black man of the post-slavery era, and probably the most influential black man in all of recorded history. He founded a school that later became a university, launched an association to help blacks start their own businesses, raised millions of dollars to start black elementary schools, and in books and speeches and through personal example expressed a philosophy of life that still, nearly a century after his death in 1915, is relevant, inspiring, and a path to personal fulfillment and prosperity for millions if only it were followed.

Washington lived at a time when two or three blacks were being lynched every week. The end of slavery had been followed, not by freedom and prosperity, but by segregation and institutionalized violence against blacks. Some black leaders, such as W.E.B. DuBois, thought political empowerment would lead to economic success. But Washington doubted whether the safety and prosperity of the black community should be entrusted to the same governments that were enforcing Jim Crow laws.

For Washington, the solution lay in education, entrepreneurship, and self-reliance. He told blacks and whites to "put down your bucket where you are," a way of saying that the resources needed to succeed in America are usually close at hand, and need only to be recognized and put to use. Rather than engage in long-winded and often divisive debate over whether blacks were entitled to houses or were capable of building houses, Washington called on blacks to acquire the skills necessary to actually build houses.

Washington, like Friedman, sought to end poverty and conflict by helping people create wealth, not by rearranging who holds political power. The solutions they proposed were more likely to succeed than statist plans because they were voluntary and win-win. They put individual freedom first. They turned away form government to find, in markets and the institutions of civil society, solutions to the most pressing problems of their days.

Eye on the Prize

In the big picture, restoring the legacy of Booker T. Washington is much more urgent to the black community than which political party controls Congress or the statehouse. Similarly, protecting and promoting the legacy of Milton Friedman ought to be of much greater concern than what George W. Bush does in the final year of his presidency.

Saying this and acting on it consistently are two different things. It is often necessary to use the topics that are currently in the news as "hooks" for getting our messages out, since they are what people want to hear about. And it does us little good to win every debate but lose every vote, whether for good legislation or good candidates. Our idealism has to be tempered by the fact that our voice is often needed now in elections and debates about pending legislation.

It's difficult to keep your eye on the prize when the people around you are caught up in the latest political controversy. Being a long way from Washington, DC helps, as does the continual feedback from Heartland members and supporters like you.

Please don't hesitate to tell me what you think of this essay, and about Heartland's recent programs described in this issue of The Heartlander.

Joseph L. Bast (jbast@heartland.org) is president of The Heartland Institute.