Thank you for laying the framework out so clearly. Personally, I find that naming is insufficient however; while it is clear that the houses named have broken the contract, I feel that we need to also describe the contract that should now be signed. The Declaration of Independence described such a contract, but it was framed by people who couldn’t or didn’t want to see what it might have meant for their own lives. My suggested contract needs polishing by someone more eloquent than I but here it is:
- We should do as much as we can for everyone, but recognize that we cannot solve all problems by spending money.
- We need to respect everyone’s right to be who they are: their race, their religion, their identity, their nationality. This means that there is no culture war, accept everyone so long as there is no actual physical or mental harm. Accept disagreement.
- People need to be respected for their labor and compensated appropriately - I am not sure how to translate that without coming off like a Marxist or a Communist. As many conservatives say and evidence has borne out, raising the minimum wage too high reduces the number of jobs.
- We need to balance what we want today with what future generations will need. This impacts the environment, the debt, the health of future generations. I am not proposing all of the answers that the progressive left would lay out, many of which are not achievable in the timeframes proposed, but that every action, personal of governmental must be weighed and measured against both our current needs and our future ones.
- It is the responsibility of those we elect to propose, present, discuss, and compromise on governmental solutions to the challenges that we face. This means not to fall back on generalities like free capitalism (markets are rarely fair), or state ownership and control (some things have worked well for China but not all) but to recognize that every noun probably deserves at least one adjective, and that the meaning of the nouns themselves likely were never agreed upon by those who proposed them or used them.
- the Declaration laid out some unalienable rights, adding new ones is a challenging but we can outline new responsibilities. As a society we are responsible for the health of our citizens, of our environment, of our economy. Both the right’s mantra of individual responsibility and the left’s mantra of community responsibility are needed to achieve success. I will leave it to others to define what that success means.
There are probably other parts to this new social contract and I am looking for help in shaping it, so that we not only name the houses that are causing the problems that were laid out by @Steven Caplin but the house that we want to live in going forward.
David — this is exactly the right question and exactly the right sequence to ask it in. You're not wrong that naming is insufficient. TR named the trusts and proposed the Sherman Act. FDR named the economic royalists and built the New Deal. The naming was the precondition, not the destination.
What strikes me about your proposed contract is how genuinely cross-partisan it is. You're not writing a progressive platform or a conservative one.It;s an attempt to describe what we actually owe each other before we argue about how to deliver it. That's the work that precedes policy, and it's the work that's been missing from Democratic politics for thirty years.
I'm not ready to write the new contract yet. Partly because I don't think I've fully earned it — you name the rot before you propose the replacement, and I'm still in the naming phase. But also because I think the contract you're sketching here needs to come from many voices, not one. What you've started is a framework for that conversation.
Thanks for sharing you thoughts, and hope you continue to follow my work!
I wrote about Ellison a few weeks ago. As for my working definition of “Houses” — Larry Fink is chairman of a publicly held company. His power is institutional, not personal. That is a very different thing. I tend not to use the term casually.
Good article. You left out other more liberal leaning “houses” like Soros and Gates which are arguable more powerful globally than the ones you listed. Unfortunately no democrat would name these since they support their causes and they would probably get disappeared if they did.
Thanks for reading. The Houses framework isn't about ideology — it's about the specific mechanism of broken contracts with working people. Soros and Gates operate primarily through philanthropy and advocacy. That's a different kind of power than what I'm describing — the Houses I named have broken specific economic promises to specific people and used political power to avoid accountability for it.
The framework is built around that broken contract, not around who I agree or disagree with politically. Please, keep reading. More to come.
Please keep going, Steve. Your argument is tightening and fine-tuning with every iteration. And your Magyar observations help make the case. Thank you.
This is just amazing. Seeing the current moment in context makes for a much deeper view. Your thoughts are so intelligent, they make me feel smart.
Thank you for laying the framework out so clearly. Personally, I find that naming is insufficient however; while it is clear that the houses named have broken the contract, I feel that we need to also describe the contract that should now be signed. The Declaration of Independence described such a contract, but it was framed by people who couldn’t or didn’t want to see what it might have meant for their own lives. My suggested contract needs polishing by someone more eloquent than I but here it is:
- We should do as much as we can for everyone, but recognize that we cannot solve all problems by spending money.
- We need to respect everyone’s right to be who they are: their race, their religion, their identity, their nationality. This means that there is no culture war, accept everyone so long as there is no actual physical or mental harm. Accept disagreement.
- People need to be respected for their labor and compensated appropriately - I am not sure how to translate that without coming off like a Marxist or a Communist. As many conservatives say and evidence has borne out, raising the minimum wage too high reduces the number of jobs.
- We need to balance what we want today with what future generations will need. This impacts the environment, the debt, the health of future generations. I am not proposing all of the answers that the progressive left would lay out, many of which are not achievable in the timeframes proposed, but that every action, personal of governmental must be weighed and measured against both our current needs and our future ones.
- It is the responsibility of those we elect to propose, present, discuss, and compromise on governmental solutions to the challenges that we face. This means not to fall back on generalities like free capitalism (markets are rarely fair), or state ownership and control (some things have worked well for China but not all) but to recognize that every noun probably deserves at least one adjective, and that the meaning of the nouns themselves likely were never agreed upon by those who proposed them or used them.
- the Declaration laid out some unalienable rights, adding new ones is a challenging but we can outline new responsibilities. As a society we are responsible for the health of our citizens, of our environment, of our economy. Both the right’s mantra of individual responsibility and the left’s mantra of community responsibility are needed to achieve success. I will leave it to others to define what that success means.
There are probably other parts to this new social contract and I am looking for help in shaping it, so that we not only name the houses that are causing the problems that were laid out by @Steven Caplin but the house that we want to live in going forward.
David — this is exactly the right question and exactly the right sequence to ask it in. You're not wrong that naming is insufficient. TR named the trusts and proposed the Sherman Act. FDR named the economic royalists and built the New Deal. The naming was the precondition, not the destination.
What strikes me about your proposed contract is how genuinely cross-partisan it is. You're not writing a progressive platform or a conservative one.It;s an attempt to describe what we actually owe each other before we argue about how to deliver it. That's the work that precedes policy, and it's the work that's been missing from Democratic politics for thirty years.
I'm not ready to write the new contract yet. Partly because I don't think I've fully earned it — you name the rot before you propose the replacement, and I'm still in the naming phase. But also because I think the contract you're sketching here needs to come from many voices, not one. What you've started is a framework for that conversation.
Thanks for sharing you thoughts, and hope you continue to follow my work!
Well done. Love the references to TR and FDR and interregnum...and Magyar success.
You should consider naming a few other Houses including Fink(Blackrock), Ellison and Rothschild...and maybe a few others worth honorable mention
I wrote about Ellison a few weeks ago. As for my working definition of “Houses” — Larry Fink is chairman of a publicly held company. His power is institutional, not personal. That is a very different thing. I tend not to use the term casually.
https://controlaltpersuade.substack.com/p/the-house-of-ellison?utm_source=direct&r=2m4rv5&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Montagues and Capulets
A story as old as they come!
Good article. You left out other more liberal leaning “houses” like Soros and Gates which are arguable more powerful globally than the ones you listed. Unfortunately no democrat would name these since they support their causes and they would probably get disappeared if they did.
Thanks for reading. The Houses framework isn't about ideology — it's about the specific mechanism of broken contracts with working people. Soros and Gates operate primarily through philanthropy and advocacy. That's a different kind of power than what I'm describing — the Houses I named have broken specific economic promises to specific people and used political power to avoid accountability for it.
The framework is built around that broken contract, not around who I agree or disagree with politically. Please, keep reading. More to come.
Please keep going, Steve. Your argument is tightening and fine-tuning with every iteration. And your Magyar observations help make the case. Thank you.
Thanks for that. Glad it resonates!