An Open Letter to the Students of Hoover House at the University of Chicago
I hope all of you are safe and healthy in these contentious times. I wanted to send you a basic greeting but was unable to resist the temptation to talk about what is going on around the nation today.
I am sure that some (perhaps many) of you have been engaged in the protests of recent weeks. The outrage is understandable.
I entered the University in the autumn of 1969, shortly after the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the intense 1968 Presidential election, the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the 1969 sit-in at the University administration building by students, and in the midst of massive civil rights and Vietnam War protests. Before my first year was out, four student protesters at Kent State University were killed by the National Guard. There are many parallels to today.
In the intervening fifty years, I have had the chance to observe human nature, human action, and the actions of what I call “change agents” – people who actually get things done, who create change, and who make the world in some way a better place.
Successful agents of change exhibit patterns of behavior.
They are more interested in effective action than symbolic gestures or complaints. They focus their minds and energy on one or a short list of issues. Then they do something about the issue.
This starts with doing research on the issue, becoming knowledgeable about why people do what they do, why they believe what they believe, and the historical background of the issue.
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion… Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them…he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
This research leads to the development of clear, concrete, explainable, and evidence-based proposals for change. Logic supersedes emotion, although passion is virtually always present.
If the issue is political – more on that in a moment – then those who sincerely want change show up at public hearings, speak up at legislatures, write letters to those in power and to the press, and above all, they vote.
Change agents want to change people’s minds and behaviors. In order to do that, they work hard to find common ground with those who oppose their ideas. My own observation is that most Americans desire similar outcomes. Disagreements are usually about how best to achieve those results. Calling someone names, no matter how strongly you disagree with them, never changes anyone’s mind.
People who change things are above all else persistent and persuasive. To put it bluntly, they are great salespeople, perpetually selling others on their ideas.
Examples of change agents abound. In Chicago, there are few better examples than Jane Addams, a most interesting person.
When he was about your age, my friend John Mackey came to the conclusion that American diets were not good for us. He then embarked on a mission to change that, which became successful through his creation, with the help of his friends, of Whole Foods Market. (John was twenty-eight when I met him; the company had one small store.) While Whole Foods’ stores tends to serve the affluent, the company has opened stores in urban “food deserts” and has motivated mass retailers like Kroger and Walmart to expand the availability of natural and organic foods.
People like Jane and John exhibit entrepreneurial attributes. They tend to be independent minded, coming up with their own unique view of the world. The often take very limited resources and achieve a great deal. They search for solutions that no one else has thought of, that contradict “the common wisdom.”
Another example of this is the recent space launch by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Every expert believed that only the government could plan and design a space program. Every expert believed that the idea of re-using a rocket, bringing it back down to earth “in reverse,” was an absurd idea. “Crazy Elon” did not see things that way. While this particular venture did require massive amounts of money, it took a lot less than the experts thought or that the government had spent in the past.
As a booklover, my own passion was to get more books into more people’s hands, to get more authors and small publishers on the shelves of bookstores, to make those books more affordable, and to create good jobs for booklovers. The company my associates and I created also supported public libraries, adult literacy programs, public broadcasting, freedom from censorship, and, ultimately, the creation of Hoover House.
(William Rainey Harper and Robert Maynard Hutchins were two of my favorite entrepreneurial leaders of an important American corporation; their stories best told here.)
No matter the issue – policing, healthcare, education, immigration – a few people will have a real, lasting impact on the world. Most will just talk. Which group you fall into is up to you.
Now back to the politics of things. Each of us has our own view of the political world. In thinking about that world, I would suggest a few ideas:
The basic question of which aspects of our lives the government should control or be involved in has been core to the American debate since our country’s founding. Should decisions be made by individuals and individual enterprises and institutions, by local governments, by state governments, or by the federal government? That debate, issue by issue, will continue long after we are gone.
Surveys indicate that 55-65% of the American people are strongly affiliated with the political “duopoly” – the two big parties. Yet those same statistics tell us that a large and rising share of Americans are independents, undecideds, and swing voters. I am among them, having voted for candidates from at least three parties over the years. Given that every Presidential election since 1996 has been a close election by historical standards, we are the people who actually determine the Presidency, especially those who live in certain states. The 2020 election is almost certain to be another “squeaker.”
Nevertheless, many people are party-oriented. If you happen to be among them, I think it is important to note that elections swing both ways. Political solutions are tricky. If, for example, more power over our lives is shifted to the federal government under Franklin Roosevelt or Barack Obama, then that same power will later accrue to Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump. And vice-versa.
Historically, the government at all levels has become more involved in our daily decisions over time. Whether we look at construction permits, hiring decisions, occupational licensing, or the regulation of corporate mergers, we live in a very different country from that of our great-grandparents.
As powers have accreted to government, those powers become politicized. As problematic as individual freedom may be, centralization of power brings its own issues.
In the many decades that the airline industry was tightly regulated by a federal agency, which airline was permitted to fly to which cities was often determined by which airline chief supported which party.
The history of “well-intentioned” public housing in Chicago and St. Louis is an example of the woes of politicization.
Upon passage of the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, the hot-button issue of abortion was quickly politicized.
Despite virtually everyone’s agreement that the United States’ immigration policies make little sense, the issue has remained stalemated in Congress for decades.
In some aspects of our lives, we have seen a swing back away from centralization of power, whether that power has swung back to individuals and organizations including non-profit and for-profit corporations, or to state and local government.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter deregulated the airline industry. Since then, competition has intensified, prices (when adjusted for inflation) have come down, and aviation safety has substantially improved. Airline leaders no longer have to worry about who is in power as much as they did in the past.
In more recent times, the American people have shown a desire to reduce the involvement of the government in setting the rules for marijuana consumption, moving to more of a “market solution” (though still heavily regulated). Our politicians seem to lag the public will on this issue, and then perhaps only because legalization gives them more money to spend.
Each issue we confront today is different. Each one is complex, far more nuanced than one would guess from watching the TV news, talking heads, most politicians, and what is easily found on the Internet. Many of these issues have been “worked on” by “experts” for decades, with little or no progress.
Yet through research, analysis, independent thinking, exposition, respectful debate, and compassion for our “opponents” – all skills and mindsets that I believe are taught at our University – real progress can be made.
I hope that each of you can in some way contribute to that improvement in the human condition. There is no aspect of our lives and our society, great or small, that does not offer the opportunity for such progress.
There are few things that are more satisfying than “making a difference.”
With the best of regards,
Gary Hoover
P.S. I recommend this entrepreneurial anthem from 1969, by a seriously integrated band. Also on my playlist are this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. And, finally, please read something I wrote a few years ago.
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