Kip Sullivan has the goods on Jacob Hacker in his latest post at PNHP blog, here .
I had not realized the depth and breadth of Hacker’s uh, shall we say “truthiness”, until I did some research for Kip after he sent me a preliminary draft.
As an academic myself (which Hacker also is, via Yale) and as a reputable scientist (which Hacker appears not to be) I was simply appalled by the the way Hacker misuses data. Kip Sullivan, JD makes a stunning case for this.
But, one part of the argument, which Kip did not overly elaborate on, is that in Hacker’s piece at Slate, claiming, among other things, that “Many of us remain stubbornly attached to employment-based health insurance” he links to a Mother Jones article by Ruy Teixeira here.
I spent a lot of time trying to track down the various polls that Teixeira references. Problem is, Teixeira doesn’t give links to these polls. Further problem is that some of these key polls seem not to exist. Okay, maybe Teixeira just got the topics, or the dates, or the percentages “slightly wrong”. But, I gotta tell you, I spent a huge amount of time trying to dig out these polls, even taking into account the “slightly wrong” possibility. And, using my super-duper academic access to polling data.
At best, Teixeira is sloppy in the “data” he provides in a key link Hacker cites. Did Hacker even check on the reliability of this Mother Jones article he cited? I gotta wonder. Any responsible academic would have done so. And, any responsible academic, seeing that at least some references were suspect, to say the least, would have discounted the Mother Jones article by Teixeira, and not cited it.
And, as Kip points out:
“Amazingly, one of them (in the Teixeira piece) was the 2003 Washington Post/ABC News poll showing 62 percent support for a Medicare-for-all system that I discussed in Part 3.”
As Kip says, and I do too, “Does Hacker read the documents he cites as evidence for his own claims?”
I conclude not. Or perhaps Hacker depends on credulous fools, or even ordinary people who don’t or won’t or can’t take the time to match his claims with the actual data. Whatever, this is not the way a reputable academic would go about his work.
But, if an “academic” wishes to promote himself and his data-free agenda, well, Hacker’s mastered that. I mean, like, he’s even on TeeVee, and has won the hearts and minds of a lot of credulous “progressives”.
Kip cites a quote from Hacker- “… reformers pay too much attention to policy and too little to politics. If real estate is about location, location, location, health reform is about politics, politics, politics.”
Yep. That “sage advice”, swallowed hook, line, and sinker got in the mess we’re in now. Sadly, humans who need health care, and real reform, are just “real estate” to be bought and sold.
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Does it ever strike you that some of the
major players in all of this are more concerned with being major players than anything else? Because that's where I am with a lot of this - wondering if what people like Hacker and Hamsher and Yglesias and Klein are saying is more about keeping themselves in the spotlight than in doing the real and honest work of advancing the cause.
I think the reason I am in intellectual and ideological love with Kip and the good people at PNHP is that they never, ever forget that at the heart of this are real people; it's not an acadmic exercise for them, ever.
Thanks, VG, for this post; isn't it just deliciously ironic that Jacob's last name is "Hacker?
yes
wondering if what people like Hacker and Hamsher and Yglesias and Klein are saying is more about keeping themselves in the spotlight than in doing the real and honest work of advancing the cause.
Yes. I think one of the reasons Corrente is attacked for not getting anything done is that we confine our fundraisers for bloggers in distress. We don't have high site traffic. We don't get invited to present to conferences. And we are not access bloggers. We don't get invited to participated in phone conferences, even less in-person briefings. We are just trying to throw single payer advocates some link love, and spread the message. Some times we attend events and blog about them, which is terrific. But we have never had any illusions about our contribution to the single payer cause.
Old school
I learned how to blog 2003-2006, where posting, posting, posting ultimately affected the discourse and -- it was a famous victory -- helped the Dems take Congress. You could tell the discourse was affected because we (about 10,000 bloggers together, at a guess) developed the talking points and they percolated up. For example, Paul's work on Bush's military records never made it out to the mainstream press (alas for Dan Rather) but the idea of Bush being aWol
certainly did.
I think the same process will work for (or against) Obama and the Dems. Judging by past experience, it will take 3 years -- that is, 2008 - 2011. And affecting the discourse is very hard work. It isn't at all "not getting anything done." Lots of people on K street and the networks are paid very good money for it.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Technocrats on Parade: Jacob Hacker
As Hacker's Alderman in New Haven I was the recipient of the following two emails which are, I think, revealing of what makes him, and elite technocrats of his general class, tick.
A little bit of context for each. For the first, bear in mind that New Haven is an extremely poor city with a few affluent neighborhoods clustered around Yale, mostly populated by Yale faculty. (One of these was a small piece of my ward.)
Notice that the only concern which Hacker registers is what the city of New Haven, can do for him--in blissful disregard of the deteriorating schools, dilapidated neighborhoods, skyrocketing unemployment, etc. He demands immediate service, and, reading between the lines, he damn well better get it.
The context for the second is that I was among a group of over 250 Yale faculty who drafted a letter advocating binding arbitration as a means to settle the most recent of Yale's strikes. The unions supported it, the administration, deeply hostile to and contemptuous of its unionized employees, did not. It fell to me, as Hacker's Alderman, to try to get him to sign on.
The response I got (after ignoring my emails for weeks) was not from Hacker but from his wife, Yale Law School Prof. Oona Hathaway:
And so, decorously averting his eyes from the request that he do something for those New Haven residents who clean his toilets. mop the hallways and staff his office, the topic returns to Hacker's favorite subject: what can the City of New Haven do for me?
As Orwell wrote somewhere, is it any wonder why everyone hates us so?
Er... BDBlue, maybe?
... are there any issues with publishing this? Is it private correspondence?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Shouldn't be
I was an elected official and this was official correspondence.
Thanks John
for posting those emails.
They really are very telling, emphasizing the concern with real estate.
And, to repeat a quote-
Kip cites a quote from Hacker- “… reformers pay too much attention to policy and too little to politics. If real estate is about location, location, location, health reform is about politics, politics, politics.”
Ooooh, burn!
Nice catch, VG.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Portrait of a Technocrat (pace Lambert)
I realize that the connection between Hacker's NIMBYism, his failure to stand up for the Yale unions and his de facto role in helping to destroy any possibility for meaningful reform of the for profit health care system might at first seem a little bit oblique.
Where the continuity lies is found in a useful essay by Adolph Reed from 1996 recently republished on commondreams.org.
Establishment liberalism, according to Reed is,
Hacker's strident efforts to maintain his neighborhood as an oasis from the rest of New Haven and his need to distinguish himself from single payer advocates stem from a common source: a desperate need to maintain his status and credibility among those who "matter" i.e. those with wealth, power and privilege.
oh,thanks again John!
NIMBYism- Not In My Back Yard ?
"might at first seem a little bit oblique".
LOL- perhaps for the first millisecond.
Thank you again for your very telling perspective. The disconnect between the topic at hand (Yale strike) and the response "can we have a nice traffic island please" really said volumes about "priorities".
There's also an element of iconoclastic elistism
There's a style of thinking I observed in Jacob's father, Andrew. The elder Hacker taught skepticism and mistrust of previously established ideological positions. In his classes he probed the weaknesses of all ideological positions, and was as hard on what he viewed as conventional liberal or socialist positions, as he was on Republican positions. During his classes he never took positive positions, but always used the Socratic Method of teaching. He was great at that and it was very effective.
The first time I saw him take a position was in his book Political Theory. It actually turned out to be a pretty conventional Political Theory text with a few quirky twists and turns of interpretation, not found in others. But it was nothing revolutionary in concept. His later books I've read always were iconoclastic in their point of view, but their policy prescriptions never seemed particularly original to me. It was as if the iconoclasm in them had no practical fruit.
When I first encountered the public option and Jacob Hacker's role in making it popular, my first reaction was "isn't that just typical of a Hacker?" Don't take the conventional Medicare for All position, but find some iconoclastic grounds on the basis of which you can disagree with it, and then push some solution that's similar enough to get liberal support, but that might possibly defuse knee jerk opposition because it's a new "non-ideological idea." Of course, I was skeptical, wondering whether opponents of Medicare for All wouldn't fight just as hard to water down and kill the PO as they would to block Medicare for All? Of course, by March it was pretty clear to me, at least, that the strategy wouldn't work and that all it was succeeding in doing was confusing people and confusing the messaging of the Administration.
The kind of thinking I've pointed to in both of the Hackers' work is a style that seems to be prevalent among Ivy League and particularly Harvard graduates. In whatever they do, there's a drive to be seen as original and creative, but not so creative and original that what they say goes beyond what may be palatable to the mainstream. The objective is to be different and offer solutions that tinker at the edges, but never anything that drives at the foundations of a problem, and is truly radical in its implications.
Great commment lets
Now I see where you were going with your comment that caused my knee jerk snit. Read on. ;)
Classic "creative class"
See Anglachel on It's Just Like Grad School.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"you can always tell a harvard man,
but you can't tell him much."
I've noticed that
It's especially noticeable when they ask you to critique their work and then thank you for some minor point you've made, but entirely ignore addressing the fundamental objection you've made that calls into question the validity of their whole endeavor.
Mind you, I'm not saying they have to agree with you, but if the criticism is fundamental, they at least ought to confront it with reasons why their work overcomes it. Then everyone involved would learn something.
Apples falling from Trees
This is very perceptive, Lets. Thanks.
As for Hacker père, I should say that, having read his stuff in the NYRB for years- old style liberal attacks on Clinton era welfare reform come most readily to mind- it never occurred to me that he would be genetically capable of producing the budding neo-liberal Jacob.
But I should have known better-even back then. A good comparison might be the odious Mark Halperin issuing from Nixon enemies list entry and minimally decent (albeit untrustworthy) establishment liberal Morton.
Then there's the Ickes clan-and lots of others trading on family reputations developed during the New Deal. Also, children of sixties radicals have begun to play the game just as well-c.f. Ta Nehisi Coates defending killer cops on his Atlantic blog.
Could mention lots of others, if I wanted to get even more depressed by thinking about it.
Nothing succeeds like success seems to have replaced doing well by doing good as the operative words to live by.
The term of art is not "technocrat"...
... but "creative class." Snort.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
the ruy texeira piece
was also published eleswhere, as a blog post iirc, and that one did have links to the polls cited. i can try to dig it up again if you want it, but it's been a long time since i found it [i was arguing poll interpretation with someone at the time].
texeira, like celinda lake, is a democratic party 'strategist'.
------------------------------------
eta: this is the blog post i remembered, and i think the poll data he 'cites' came from the various links here [can't remember for sure, and i've got stuff going on so can't take time right at the moment to follow the links and check them out].
additional links
here [or maybe they're the same links].
Yes the democratic strategist post
http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/d...
appears to be identical to the one at Slate.
And it does not contain any links to the polls either
the democratic strategist
the democratic strategist post has a link to a century foundation piece that has links to a few polls. i think texeira was talking about those particular polls, but i don't remember for sure and i haven't gone back to revisit it, other than to look it up again in light of this post. shortly after this is when i gave up on trying to teach progressives/liberals on the internet how to interpret polls about single payer and instead started talking to conservatives/republicans irl about supporting medicare for all.
the 'creative class' took over the health care arena and the 'creative class' luvz them some intricacy and technocracy [and they hate and fear limbic systems].
And no, there are not pertinent links for topic
http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubi...
~~~A somewhat similar pattern can be observed in a June, 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation survey.That poll asked people how worried they were about a wide range of problems. The top worry was “having to pay more for your health care or health insurance” (45 percent said they were very worried), followed by “not being able to pay medical costs when you are elderly” (42 percent) and “your income not keeping up with rising prices” (40 percent). In contrast, only 24 percent were very worried about not being able to pay their rent or mortgage, 19 percent about losing their savings in the stock market, and 17 percent about losing their job~~~
The link in that part works but has nothing to do with the issue of preference for types of insurance plans.
-----
~~In this regard, a just-released Kaiser Family Foundation survey specifically on the issue of health care costs provides much valuable information. Here are some key findings from the survey.~~~
The link goes to a 404 page error.
-------
~~~In a more recent Kaiser poll (June 2005), when presented with a variety of options for expanding health insurance to cover more Americans, the public did express a high level of support for nearly every option (ranging from 70 percent to 88 percent). The only option that didn’t garner majority support is a national health plan financed by tax payers that would provide insurance for all Americans (37 percent). However, when asked to select the single best option, no one option attracted widespread support.~~~
This seems to contain key data BUT NO LINK IS PROVIDED.
------
So, I've just wastedanother half hour banging my head against the wall trying to track down poll links. Thanks.
you're welcome!
:)
my apologies for having sent you off on a wild goose chase then.
It's okay!
Did give me a chance to illustrate a small part of the problem. ;)
Great post
Texeira, is a democratic party 'strategist' and was part of Obama's internet fan club. Josh Marshall use to push Texeira "stuff" and as we all know Josh is an Obama internet fan club member deluxe.
It is really important that names and dates are taken in this game of suborning the public will to corporate interests...Jacob Hacker deserves to be called out for the self serving corporate shill that he is.
Using polls like a trial advocate
Hi vg, Thanks very much for this post, and for tracking Kip's series for us. It's good to know that you helped him with it.
I wasn't really surprised to see the biases and distortions in Hacker's work that Kip found. In fact, I would have been surprised if he found a real attempt at fair critical comparison, rather than an instance of advocacy-based analysis, highly selective both in the polls Hacker used, and in the information in each he chose to interpret.
Hacker's career became so wrapped up with progressive acceptance of his PO-strategy, that one had to approach his analysis of Medicare for All support with immediate skepticism. It's really hard to be both a policy advocate and a social scientist doing a comprehensive analysis intended to get at the facts of the matter. I think Kip's analysis shows that Hacker failed that test.
thanks Lets
Kip asked me to try and find some specific polls in the Teixeira piece, having searched high and low for them w/o success. I have academic access to the Roper polling site, and Kip asked me to check there, and more generally, in case he'd missed something. He hadn't.
And the deeper I got into this, looking at the 2007 Hacker piece, the more I learned about the use of flim -flam, and how slippery Hacker and co. are.
This is just so sloppy
I mean, they could have had Celinda Lake make up some fake polls, and then cited to them. What's wrong with these people?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
flim-flammery
Don't know if Jacob Hacker, a third generation academic, thinks of himself as a flim-flam artist. Maybe just as a kind of lawyer or academic entrepreneur arguing a case.
It's not a Lawyer's job to try to be objective, but just to make the best case she or he can. Of course, it's up to others, trained in skeptical approaches, to put him to the test. I received some of my earliest skeptical training from Jacob's father, Andrew, who was instrumental in getting me to Graduate School, rather than School, where I might otherwise have ended up.
I didn't say
that flim-flam was his own opinion of himself. That was mine.
And, if Hacker were a lawyer, his defense or offense in court for his nonsense would have been shot down pronto.
I really have to disagree with the premise of your comment, likening Hacker to a lawyer who makes a case in a court of law. Hacker is not a lawyer. He is a poseur in the court of public opinion.
And, exactly how does the fact that you got skeptical training from Jacob's father relate to criticism of son Jacob? And, that father Andrew was instrumental in getting you into graduate school?
So what if Hacker is a third generation academic?
I call bullshit. Sorry lets, I think your argument above is bogus.
VG, Perhaps I'm too hard in Lawyers
Perhaps I'm being too hard on lawyers, but my point was that Lawyers have an advocacy orientation while social scientists are supposed to have an orientation towards testing the views they investigate. That means they're supposed to look for contrary evidence and to refute their hypotheses. Hacker's work's not like that. It's more like an argument against Medicare for All, supported by selecting evidence from polling data. I think that's the approach of legal argument, not the classical approach of social scientists.
Regarding my mention of Andrew Hacker being my teacher many years ago, I found it ironic that the skepticism he taught me wasn't being applied by his son in Jacob Hacker's work on Medicare for All.
As far as his being a third generation academic, I thought that was relevant to his self-perception and suggests that he may not see himself as flim-flamming anyone. I take your point that you didn't say that this was his perception of himself, but that it's your evaluation of what he's doing. However, here I do have to point out that "flim-flamming" someone is an intentional act, and that however much we think his views are BS in the sense that they are untrue, that doesn't mean that he's trying to fool us, unless we also have reasons for thinking that he would do that.
Finally, I agree that Hacker isn't a Lawyer. If I'm not mistaken, he's a Political Science Ph.D. like his father and myself. But the fact that he's a political scientist doesn't prevent him from using evidence in the same selective way that Lawyers are trained to do to make their cases, even if he's not trying to flim-flam us.
Thanks again Lets
I don't know if I can do justice to your reply, which was superb.
~~here I do have to point out that "flim-flamming" someone is an intentional act~~
Okay, I take your point on that, having thought more about flim-flam. I used the expression carelessly, not having considered whether flim-flamming was an intentional act or not. So, I have to agree with you on that, as you elaborated above.
And, re: "Perhaps I'm being too hard on lawyers, but my point was that Lawyers have an advocacy orientation.. etc."
Well, there are lawyers, and then there are lawyers. And, maybe only a rare breed that advocate for their client without resorting to being a paid liar. Okay, I should stop, because I really can't explain fully in a relevant to topic way. Except to say that as I understand it, and seems you say the same, lawyers are meant to be advocates for their clients, without prejudging their guilt or innocence. The aim being that their client gets a fair day in court. So, of course, whichever side aims to present evidence to those ends. But, obviously, many lawyers go beyond presenting evidence, and "use" evidence....
Okay, I better stop now. I am getting into the weeds, without presenting evidence. :)
And, re: third generation, yes, now I see the point you were making.
and, apologies for not having addressed all your points.
What Make Jacob run?
Actually, as shown in books like A Civil Action terrible arguments are made in court all the time and routinely accepted by judges and juries. So I wouldn't consign Hacker to a circle of hell below that inhabited by corporate lawyers.
As indicated by the posting above, I think it is crucial to have a basic understanding of the motivations and psychology of the elite, technocratic class if we are going to fight them successfully. Crucial to this understanding is the recognition that they believe their own bullshit-on some level at least.
And why not? It's certainly worked for Hacker.
Those who take a more skeptical view are blowing off steam on obscure blogs.
hmmm?
~~Those who take a more skeptical view are blowing off steam on obscure blogs.~~~
Was that meant for me?
Yes, as was pointed out to me within the last few minutes by a friend KS, I was hard on Lets.
Lets is a really good guy, one of the best, and has written eloquently about SP and many other issues. I trust he knows from our previous interactions that I admire his eloquence and hard work.
I've never had cause before to differ with him. For what ever reason his comment pushed a bad button with me. Lets is a very thoughtful guy, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. And, your comment suggests I threw the baby out with the bathwater in my response to lets, and likely you are correct.
Au contraire
Nah-it was meant for me.
well then
please keep on blowing off steam! I am avidly reading your comments.
And, i think you are doing something quite better than just blowing off steam in your comments.
It's really quite rare to get your kind of personal insight and experience with Hacker publicly stated. A lot of nefarious stuff goes on in the ivory tower of academe, as I have cause to know. That's part of why Lets' comment about Hacker being a third generation academic (and what I read at first as a point in his favor) put me into snit mode.
Disclosure: I am only a first generation academic. ;)
I used to be one too
I used to be a first generation academic too, but ran into some nefarious stuff before I could lock away tenure at a good State University. I ended up here in DC during the 1970s and became a "non-political" research consultant working mostly on my own. Over the past 12 years or so, I've been writing and training a lot and really enjoying myself, but perhaps never so much as now when I've become "political" again.
Don't Worry, Be Happy!
VG said:
"I trust he knows from our previous interactions that I admire his eloquence and hard work."
I do VG, and I very much appreciate your reaching out to me when I first appeared on FDL, and consider us friends who are frequently of like mind.
I didn't react angrily to your previous post, as you can see from my reply to it below. So, "Don't Worry, Be Happy."
I hope that all of us here, can freely exchange differences of opinion with one another and still stay good-humored about it.
Absolutely
And, you are a master at keeping your cool. And, sometimes "differences of opinion" turn out to be misreadings (as was the case in my first response to you)
And, I hope you see the rather obscure point in my following indulgence, showing one of my all time favorite cartoons:
Obscure blogs...
Well, we're the blog that everybody hates and nobody reads!
Seriously, we're a guilty pleasure for a lot of people. They just don't want to give us any oxygen, that's all....
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
the technocratic class and neoliberals
is there a connection between the technocratic class and neoliberals?
i just read a 2 year old paper that is imo a must read: The Logic of the Health Care Debate,
here are some bits i just posted over at fdl (my bolds):
The Lizard Brain
Great post! For years my fellow travelers and myself have anguished over the lack of success the progressive message has had in this country, and IMHO, it rests largely on the ability of the conservatives to frame the message. As stated in the above article, and also in "The Political Brain" by Drew Westen, the message is lost in what could be described as an overly-intellectualized and complex presentation. It is not only tea-baggers who are susceptible to a simple, emotional, symbolic presentation. Not many American citizens have been exposed to any sort of sophisticated or even humanistic political thought, the full extent of their exposure being in high school History class (I believe Civics is gone from the curriculum?). To effect any change in the views of the electorate the progressive model must be taught, people must be "brought along" to ever higher levels of political thought, and then to action. To accomplish this, the message must be tailored not only towards those already well-versed in "liberal-speak", for then the preaching is only to the choir, a failing seen frequently.
The political pragmatism of neo-liberals thus fails in two areas: first, a garbled message, and then in Chamberlainian (new word?) compromise.
"Rule number one: pay attention"-Ded Bob
neoliberals and technocrats
i've wondered for some time if neoliberalism evolved because we keep turning out ever more technocrats [no more blue collar jobs, and science and engineering jobs, if you can get one, don't pay, etc] with nowhere to employ their formidable education and brainpower and so they invent complicated 'third way' policies to address the problems of the day [and perhaps even invents solutions that are in need of problems].
Great insight.
To put it unkindly: Useless people trying to justify their salaries.
Quatrains
At a blog called "corrente"
it appears the intent
is to pitch an increasingly spacious big tent.
For a left screwed by whores from th'establishment
From all genders and creeds
One can find there long screeds
(That everyone hates and nobody reads)
For a health reform plan to meet peoples' real needs
And tonight we'll retire with keyboards aflame
Having posted again to near zero acclaim,
Facts surely ignored by those hacks who maintain
That the fault lies with us.
How dare we suggest, Chris B. will proclaim
That those blogs having "access" should share in the blame
For trillions amassed by those playing the game
Of denial of claims going under the name
Of health care "reform".
Wouldn't you say that's a little insane?
Definitely a work of genius
Thanks.
Brilliant.
But doesn't "corrente" have three syllables?
cinquain
the blog
that ev'ryone
hates and nobody reads
is oft times f[l]amed throughout the blog-
o-sphere
----------------
love this:
And tonight we'll retire with keyboards aflame
Having posted again to near zero acclaim,
haiku
Loading the wood stove;
watching SiteMeter. Hidden
flames; organic growth.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Poetry in Motion
Writing the heart of the movement on the wall.
"Rule number one: pay attention"-Ded Bob