With Obligation to All

Rating:
Summary: How the personal informs the political in the Aloha State.
Review: I was fortunate to spend about half my pre-college years in Hawai`i, nearly all of which time coincided with the three terms of Hawai`i's longest serving elected governor, George R. Ariyoshi. And so although he and I have some significant political and philosophical disagreements, I enjoyed this chance to learn a little more about a man who was always something of a feature of my early life, and put some vaguely remembered controversies into better focus.

Like all memoirs (especially ones by politicians) there are self-serving elements to this book that make it worth reading with a grain or two of salt. At the same time, though, Governor Ariyoshi's focus really isn't on refighting old battles (in fact, I wish he'd gone into a little *more* political detail than he did). Instead, he's more interested in examining how his background as the son of Japanese immigrants, but born and raised in the unique political and cultural setting of Hawai`i, colored his worldview and approach to public service. 'Warm' and 'human' are the sorts of words reviewers always use for books like this, and I think they apply here. This is an interesting, informative, and at times, touching, book.

This book reveals some fascinating contradictions, not only in Hawai`i's political world, but also in Ariyoshi himself. For all his focus on compromise, moderation, agreement, planning for the future, and so on, Ariyoshi is an intense partisan. He is a loyal Democrat Party man, and his references to the Republicans are almost always derogatory. Toward the end of the book, for example, he describes the work of 'transform[ing] Hawai`i from a politically backwards territory to a progressive, multiracial state,' as 'the most essential accomplishment of the Democratic Party' (p. 200), as though social progress can only occur through the hand of government, and even then only if that hand is Democrat.

That brings us to an issue I wish Ariyoshi had addressed more directly -- an issue that is, in fact, the central fact of political life in the Fiftieth State: the state is ruled (it's not too strong a word) by an 'iron triangle' of Big Labor, Democratic Party politicians, and a bloated State bureaucracy. Ariyoshi admits (p. 199) that Hawai`i is essentially a one-party state, but --typically, though not entirely incorrectly -- blames the GOP for their own irrelevance.

He breezily dismisses criticisms of Hawai`i's regulate/socialize/bureaucratize/tax tradition as 'continental modes of thinking' (p. 126), without explaining why a free market is somehow unsuited for the Island State. Indeed, he notes that 'In Hawaii we have a tradition of highly centralized government that can be traced to Kamehameha's wars of conquest and the formation of the Hawaiian kingdom' (p. 128) -- an argument that reduces to little more than 'We do it this way because we've always done it this way.' Throughout the book, whether he is addressing the 1970s 'energy crisis,' economic development, affordable housing, diversification of agriculture, limiting the adverse impact of tourism and 'in-migration,' and the rest, the solution always -- always -- involves government.

In short, *otagai* -- 'We are obligated to one another' -- may well be true. But why that obligation needs to be met through the coercive force of government is a linkage Governor Ariyoshi leaves largely unaddressed. At one point, he quotes Lao Tsu that 'A leader is best when the people hardly know he exists, and of that leader the people will say when his work is done that "We did this ourselves."' (p. 96). Ariyoshi takes this to mean leaders should draw people in and get them involved in a common effort. But I always interpreted it to mean 'leaders' should, to the greatest extent possible, leave the people unmolested in the first place. That way, 'we did this ourselves' becomes literally true, and not an illusion used to camouflage the acts of the 'leaders' themselves.

Apart from these philosophical differences, though, I genuinely enjoyed reading this book. It brought back many memories for me, and more to the point, gave many valuable insights on both the process and the potential of political leadership. Low as my opinion of career politicians tends to be, I have to admit that if more of them were motivated by the kinds of ideals described on these pages, the act of politics might well be a less nasty thing. I even -- dare I say it? -- have a little bit of admiration for the man.