Noted political science professor — and new American citizen — David Coates offers a unique perspective on capitalism, politics and immigration.
The changing face of capitalism
Worrell Professor David Coates weighs in on where his new country is heading
British native David Coates, Worrell Professor of Anglo-American Studies, received his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and taught at the universities of York, Leeds and Manchester before joining the Wake Forest faculty in 1999. His most recent books include "Blair's War" and his first book on U.S. politics, "A Liberal Tool Kit: Progressive Answers to Conservative Arguments."
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You recently became an American citizen. Why did you decide to do that at this time?
I have come to love this country very much, and am proud of my new citizenship. The citizenship ceremony was very moving. I recommend it to everyone! This is a very special country. I feel very privileged to be a part of it.
Now that you're a citizen, has that made you even more invested in our political process?
Yes, I think so. The longer I've been here, and the more I've studied, the more I've come to feel that I can and should contribute to the political debate. University academics have a responsibility to play the role, when appropriate, of public intellectuals. I feel that responsibility, and am glad to act on it. We face great challenges in our public life — and great opportunities. I'm just glad to be a part of the process, putting my limited skills at the service of my fellow citizens.
You've extensively studied different economic and political systems, and I know you're planning to teach a first-year seminar on capitalism in the spring. One of the objections to the recent $700 billion bailout plan is that America is "going socialist." Your reaction?
No, we're not going socialist — not in any meaningful sense of that word. Not at all! The image we all carry of socialism is a pretty dire one: an Eastern-European style centrally planned economy, with state ownership of major resources and no room for private enterprise. A gray world of equal and low pay, standardized clothing and no individual autonomy. An all powerful, all-seeing State — a sort of Orwellian nightmare. No, we're definitely not going in that direction.
So in what direction are we going?
What we are seeing is a government intervention in the banking system that's designed explicitly to strengthen the rest of the private sector. That intervention is already large. It may grow larger yet. But it will ultimately be temporary, and it has happened before. Something similar occurred in Sweden in the 1990s and here in the U.S. in the 1930s, on both occasions helping to trigger long-term private sector growth. It is a dramatic change from a previous policy of financial deregulation, but it is not unprecedented, and there is nothing especially liberal or progressive about it.
After all, we'd do well to remember that the federal government is already heavily involved in supporting large parts of the economy. Nobody labels it as socialism when Congress votes to send vast subsidies to the agricultural sector or to direct significant amounts of tax payer dollars to the engineering industry — to buy anything from guns and tanks to spaceships. And nor should they.
But doesn't the bailout represent a fundamental change in government policy?
Yes, it does. It marks the end of an era, but not the end of capitalism. As David Brooks said in The New York Times recently, the real casualty here is the Gingrich Revolution. Given what has happened these last four weeks, it's unlikely that any time soon a future President will build into his State of the Union Address proposals to partially privatize Social Security, as President Bush did on at least two occasions in the last eight years. For the minute, it rather looks as though Milton Friedman is out of fashion, and that John Maynard Keynes is on the way back in. We don't face socialism; but we do face a slightly more managed capitalism. But the rest of the industrial world flourishes under such a system. Arguably we will too, if the management is up to the task.
Changing subjects, a year ago you planned a major conference on campus on immigration. At that time, it looked like the federal government would actually address the problem; what happened?
There was a grass-roots rebellion at the base of the Republican Party: a fierce resistance to anything that smacked of an amnesty. When Robert Rector from the Heritage Foundation spoke with us at the conference, he was very proud of his role — and the role of the Foundation — in whipping up a firestorm of protest that prevented Republican Congressmen and women from giving their support to the reforms that, at the time, John McCain among others was supporting.
Neither presidential candidate has talked about immigration much. Can you give us a quick overview of Barack Obama's view?
He's committed to securing the border, speeding up the process of legal immigration, cracking down on employers who employ undocumented workers, and allowing those already here to work their way to citizenship by paying a fine, learning English and joining the back of the queue. He's also committed to aiding Mexican economic development, to reduce the incentives for Mexican workers to come north.
John McCain has been fairly progressive on immigration, hasn't he?
Yes, he has. He played an important leadership role in 2006-07 on this issue, as indeed did President Bush. But he's had to change the emphasis of his proposals of late because so many of his core supporters attach such importance to securing the border and to preventing any kind of amnesty. But if you read his program carefully, once the borders are secure, then he intends to do much the same kind of thing that Senator Obama is proposing — and that does include some protracted route to eventual citizenship for workers who are here illegally.
