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Chamber Hears About “The Challenges to Democracy at Home and Abroad”
Secretary Leon Panetta was the keynote speaker at the Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce Annual Membership Luncheon on January 23. As many attendees noticed, his speech was unusual for a business association event: he focused on intellectual and philosophical issues rather than giving a situational report on current politics and policies.
World and National Trends: Going the Wrong Direction
Secretary Panetta noted that after the Cold War, “democracy” spread rapidly around the world as a preferred form of government. Secretary Panetta identified three reasons why autocracy is gaining popularity in the United States, and he proposed responses to each:
1. Educational System No Longer Provides an Underpinning for Understanding Democracy. Secretary Panetta asserts that American public schools were once effective in teaching history and civics, so that graduates had an idea about how their civil government works and how it addressed challenges over time. But nowadays, younger generations often have an astonishing lack of knowledge about how their government works. While STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) is important for our country, perhaps the downplaying of history and civics has made younger generations vulnerable to the lure of autocracy.
Schools need to focus on history and civics. Also, some sort of compulsory national service, whether focused on environmental, educational or military, may be beneficial for preserving our democracy.
2. Excessive Lawmaking and Rule Making Stifles Free Expression and Entrepreneurship. People and factions assert power by creating laws and growing bureaucracies to control the speech and the activities of other people. Cumbersome, expensive, time-consuming procedures to get government permits is one example. If government neglects serving the people and instead serves as an obstacle for people to say and do things, it represses drive and creativity.
We need to reduce the size of bureaucracies. We also must be wary of people using Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a tool to devise even more effective ways to stifle free expression and entrepreneurship.
3. Loss of Wisdom in Leadership. The strength of America is in finding common ground, often manifested in its ability to reach compromise within our democratic system. When leaders respond to challenges by serving themselves and their own factions without regard to all the people, then government no longer runs effectively - it tilts from crisis to crisis without consistent principles. Abandonment of the structured budget appropriations process in Congress - and its replacement with continuing resolutions promoted with deceptive public celebrations - is an example of how Congress is staggering under a lack of wise leadership.
The Panetta Institute is working to develop leadership skills and provide an adequate history and civics education to younger generations. A lot more of this needs to happen.
If you have questions or comments about this speech or its relevance to the Chamber, please contact President and CEO Monica Lal at monica@montereychamber.com or at (831) 277-2279.
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