The Radical Center

This bold book proposes to take American politics in a totally new direction -- away from "our rigid two-party cartel" and toward a centrism that currently doesn't exist in an electoral sense.

Please see below for a sampling of the reviews garnered by The Radical Center:

The Washington Post

Sunday, November 11, 2001
Someday, it is reasonable to assume, the digital revolution we are living through will produce a political system all its own. Other profound transformations in our social and economic history have done that: The iron-and-steel capitalism that took hold after the Civil War gave us two full generations of plutocratic Republican power; then the shock of the Depression ushered in Democratic majorities that lasted more than 30 years. One can argue plausibly that the Internet, wireless communication and the high-speed global economy represent societal change of an equally dramatic sort, and that the political counterpart is coming -- it is only a matter of time.

This is the thesis of Ted Halstead and Michael Lind, founders and denizens of the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank so eclectic in its philosophy that the only way to describe it is to average out the ideas and place it somewhere near the center.

That is where Halstead and Lind position themselves with The Radical Center; they build on the notion that it is possible to stand in the middle of the political spectrum and lob ideological grenades effectively at either end. In their view, the current Democratic and Republican parties are relics of an earlier era, captives in one case of "aggrieved minority groups and public employee unions" and, in the other, of narrow and inflexible "social conservatives and economic libertarians."

"As we enter the information era," Halstead and Lind write, "the increasingly heterodox pluralism of the American public is in direct conflict with the dogmatic duopoly of our two parties… At some point in the early 21st century, the modern equivalents of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt will once again remodel the inherited institutions of our republic."

At some point. But when will that point be? Are we on the verge of it now? The authors do their best to make a case that the early elements of genuine political upheaval are already present in the partisan disaffections of the electorate. More people identify themselves as independents than as Republicans or Democrats; two-thirds tell pollsters they would like to see an alternative to the current two-party system.

Maybe this is right, and maybe not. Our current political dinosaurs, unlike the prehistoric ones, have the ability to evolve, adapt a little at the margins and limp along from era to era. They also have the useful ability to enact electoral laws that inhibit the emergence of serious predators.

But the issue of whether revolution may be imminent is not the most interesting part of this book. The heart of The Radical Center is Halstead and Lind's attempt to describe what a 21st-century political system will look like, if and when it does arrive. -- Alan Ehrenhalt

Publishers Weekly

Monday, July 30, 2001
The U.S. is in crisis, contend Halstead and Lind. While revolutions in information technology and biotechnology are fundamentally reshaping the American economy and society, the two major political parties remain stuck within old ideas and policies. More and more Americans have become alienated from the political status quo and yearn for change, say Halstead and Lind (director and senior fellow, respectively, of the think-tank New America Foundation).

In this subtle, clear, and provocative work, they offer a comprehensive blueprint for such change. America has succeeded by adapting to new circumstances while maintaining, albeit imperfectly, a balance among its three constituent parts: the market, government and community. All of the authors' wide-ranging reforms aim at strengthening these spheres. If the new economy is typified by high turnover of employees, employer-based health insurance makes little sense. Better would be mandatory individually funded health insurance, with government provision for the truly needy. So, too, should Social Security be replaced by individual retirement accounts, as the graying of America makes the current generational transfer of funds more and more tenuous and contentious.

To confront growing inequality in the U.S., the authors believe, all Americans should be given $6,000 at birth as a means of assuring true equal opportunity and a stake in the system; K-12 education should be funded equally on a per pupil basis by the federal government rather than relying on highly unequal property taxes or regressive state and local sales taxes. Politically, new electoral processes should open up the system to new parties and candidates.

There is something here for everyone to cheer or jeer, but in carefully tying together their myriad reforms, the authors present a remarkably coherent vision for the renewal of America. -- Kris Dahl

 

Library Journal

Wednesday, August 1, 2001
In the tradition of books like David Osborne and Ted Gaebler's Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector, Halstead (founder and director of the New America Foundation, a Washington, DC, think tank) and Lind (Up from Conservatism, New America senior fellow) embrace America's strong tradition of reinvention in this political manifesto for the Information Age. Drawing upon American history and mindful of the turmoil surrounding the 2000 election, they assert that the traditional ideologies of the liberal Left and the conservative Right have become defunct and are responsible for the political alienation of much of the populace.

As an antidote, they offer a "new, radical centrist agenda" that borrows ideas from the Right (termination of the corporate income tax and affirmative action) and the Left (mandatory national health insurance and federal equalization of public school funding) while simultaneously putting forth new solutions for saving Social Security and simplifying our tax system. Their arguments are quite persuasive and, to their credit, they write in a clear, succinct prose style and employ a McCainesque straight-talk sensibility that will help them attract the independent, centrist-minded voters at whom the book is aimed.

Sure to have its detractors across the political spectrum, this book adds many fresh insights to our currently stale political discourse. Recommended for all public and academic libraries. -- Heath Madom

More Praise for The Radical Center

"A political manifesto worthy of the Information Age."
Senator John McCain

"The Radical Center is much more than the future of American politics -- it's the future of America."
Senator John Breaux

"A provocative, thoughtful, and timely message for the political establishment and the governing class, The Radical Center should be mandatory reading for everyone in office and for those of us who cover them."
Tom Brokaw, NBC News

"A milestone in political thinking. Nowhere else has the case for the irrelevance of the old categories of Left and Right been put so forcefully. The Radical Center is required reading for anyone who aspires to political literacy."
John Gray, Author of False Dawn

"Everyone agrees that we live in a revolutionary age in which technology is changing life as we know it. Now come Ted Halstead and Michael Lind with an ambitious agenda -- to reinvent our politics for these new times. They offer a fresh and intelligent roadmap for America's future."
Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek

"The Radical Center provides what the political establishment thus far has failed to articulate: a clear and coherent program of innovative policy ideas adapted to the Information Age. With a creative drive and passion like those of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Halstead and Lind offer a bold vision of institutional transformation."
Eric Benhamou, Chairman of 3COM Corporation

"Even if you disagree with some of their proposals, Halstead and Lind represent important and refreshing new voices of the generation to come, whose work will challenge received opinion about public policy."
Francis Fukuyama, Author of The End Of History

"Halstead and Lind offer us a new progressive center. I hope this book starts the wide-ranging debate that we need."
Bill Joy, Cofounder of Sun Microsystems

"The Radical Center represents new thinking, combining lessons learned from the past with an optimistic view of the future. This book deserves to be read by thoughtful Americans of all generations."
John C. Whitehead, Former Chairman of Goldman Sachs

"In this brilliant book, Halstead and Lind capture a new center visible to the next generation but never before expressed. Regardless of your political party, your future is here."
Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google

"The curse of modern politics is what the technology world calls 'legacy code' -- inherited taboos, biases, and blinders that prevent most public figures from expressing, or even thinking, original thoughts. The Radical Center shows us how we could deal with a number of intractable public issues if we were willing actually to think about them rather than just operating by reflex and rote."
James Fallows, Chairman of The New America Foundation