The Next Deal: The Future of Public Life in the Information Age

Rating:
Summary: The Choice Revolution and the Democratic Party
Review: All members of what the author calls the Choice Generation ought to read this book regardless of party affiliation. Cherny pens a great history of the development of government in the US in reaction to the changes in the economy. In general, the book is readable and is filled with subtle humor.

While I don't agree with all of his solutions, his main point that government needs to change to adapt to the new information-based economy is dead-on.

His futuristic approach to governing is in stark contrast to the populist, backward-looking campaign waged by his party during the last presidential election. The Dems could do well to listen to Andrei in the future.

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant and timely must-read.
Review: Andrei Cherny offers a clear vision of the changes taking place within our political landsape and of the directions in which our next generation of leaders must be headed. Flying in the face of the current political climate, The Next Deal manages to provoke thought and inspire action without resorting to mere punditry or beanery. The book's message will resonate with readers of all political stripes. Cherny's work is to be chereshed, and should be considered a must-read, by the political professional and the informed citizen alike.

Rating:
Summary: The Choice Revolution and the Democratic Party
Review: At a mere 21 years of age, Andrei Cherny became the youngest White House speechwriter in history, eventually becoming Vice President Gore's senior speechwriter.

But how he got the job I'll never understand.

Yes, Mr. Cherny and the Vice President share a passionate interest in the revolutionary changes being wrought by the dawn of the Information Age.

But the Vice President's 2000 campaign demonstrated a passionate interest in resisting the very changes that would make government more responsive to the new expectations and new choices of the American people. The Vice President waged a vehement campaign against giving workers the freedom to choose personal retirement accounts to complement their basic Social Security contract...against the freedom to choose from a wide variety of private health insurance options via Medicare...against the freedom to choose schools that work, be they public, private or parochial...against the very Choice Revolution about which Mr. Cherny is so refreshingly passionate.

Indeed, at times it seemed Vice President Gore was building a bridge back to the 19th century with its class warfare and big machine politics.

Mr. Cherny, by contrast, is a young man in a hurry to see our central government decentralize...to see the federal government devolve to more individual and state control...and to see the Democratic Party shift from the party of Big Government welfare to Smart Government wealth creation. And how sweet it is.

He simultaneously blasts "Blockhead Conservatism" and "Treadmill Liberalism" as old slices of a stale political pie.

Nowhere are Mr. Cherny's ideas more revolutionary than in the area of wealth creation and Social Security. "Americans should -- for the first time -- be guaranteed a minimum Social Security benefit, come what may. This should be coupled witht he freedom to choose to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes as they see fit. In the 1990s bull run on Wall Street, the wealthiest 10 percent of American households received nearly 90 percent of the profits. All Americans should have a greater chance to share this prosperity -- and a greater choice in how to receive it."

You won't hear talk like this from Al Gore.

It took a speechwriter leaving the Clinton-Gore Administration and striking out on his own to match Gore's passion for technology and the Internet Age with a intellectually and morally consistent view of how to apply such marketplace changes to the functions of government.

Better yet, Mr. Cherny is not alone. If one looks closely, a trend is beginning to develop among the mavericks, the renegades within the Democratic Party.

To this end, I highly recommend a book by another lifelong Democrat -- this one a Baby Boomer, not a Gen-Xer -- named Wade Dokken, a book called "New Century, New Deal: How To Turn Your Wages Into Wealth Through Social Security Choice." Mr. Dokken is passionate about his party, the "party of the people." But as a "New Investor Class Democrat," he pleads with his party to "wake up and smell the Starbucks" -- to realize the dramatic social and demographic changes that are washing over the electorate...and not let President Bush and the GOP capture the 80-million strong New Investor Class who embrace the Choice Revolution. Instead, go after them with passion and persistence.

Mr. Dokken has more real world experience than Mr. Cherny, and it shows in their books. As the CEO of American Skandia, a $30 billion company, Mr. Dokken understands how money is made, how money is managed, how wealth is created. He's also got a sense of humor -- a sense of revolutionary spirit -- a willingness to needle his party more than his younger ally.

"As a life-long Democrat, it pains me to say this, but I feel obligated to warn my party," writes Mr. Dokken. "When it comes to saving Social Security, building upon FDR's legacy, and helping working families create real wealth through personal retirement accounts, the leadership of the Democratic Party is dangerously out of touch with the American people. It's as though Al Gore is from Mars and Hillary Clinton's from Venus. They just don't get it. And if they don't start getting it fast, they're going to get left behind in a cloud of dust, with a mighty 'Heigh ho, Silver, away!' echoing in their ears as millions of working families stampede to a political party that does get it, that promises to fight for their right to enter the New Investor Class and turn wages into wealth."

Mr. Dokken adds: "As I see it, the leadership of the Democratic Party is stricken with a historic case of Attention Demographics Disorder. They seem inexplicably inattentive to the financial aspirations of some 80 million Baby Boomers and 46 million Gen-Xers who are America's future. Thus, as a I write this in the summer of the year 2000, the Republican Party seems poised over the next several election cycles to reshape dramatically the political landscape. It's poised to transform itself from the the 'party of the rich' to the 'party of people who want to become rich.'...Just as a generation of working class social conservatives fled from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in the 1970s and 1980s, I believe that a new generation of savings and investment minded fiscal conservatives -- 'New Democrats' who are part of the emerging 'New Investor Class' -- are now also poised to flee to the GOP."

And that, Mr. Dokken writes, spells trouble for the party of FDR, Kennedy and Clinton.

Still, taken together, Mr. Cherny's fascinating treatise and Mr. Dokken's marvelous manifesto are MUST READING. These two aren't famous -- yet. But they will be. Anyone who wants to understand the revolution about to occur within the party should start with "THE NEXT DEAL" and "NEW CENTURY, NEW DEAL." They are a dynamic duo for a party in the doledrums.

Rating:
Summary: What's NEXT in Public Policy . . .
Review: Building on the work of "Reinventing Government" by Osborne and Gaebler, former Gore speechwriter Andrei Cherny makes the case for a federal government that drops the old "New Deal" bureaucracy in favor of a new guiding and enabling role. In the course of doing so, Cherny presents American history through the lens of Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian philosophies of government and weaves it together with a demographic portrayal of what he calls "The Choice Generation".

The result is readable and interesting, but left me (admittedly, a Republican) with the feeling that Cherny is in the wrong party. He believes Americans want the ability to control their lives more than anything else, but doesn't grapple with the notion that lower taxes and control over one's financial resources are probably the single greatest enablers of personal choice. I'd like to see him deal with the question of financial freedom instead of just blowing past it.

Cherny's prose style has speechwriter written all over it. He clearly enjoys putting together words and phrases that would snap when spoken to an audience.

If you're interested in what the future of public policy looks like to a well-informed young writer of the center-left, give The Next Deal a try.

Rating:
Summary: What's NEXT in Public Policy . . .
Review: Building on the work of "Reinventing Government" by Osborne and Gaebler, former Gore speechwriter Andrei Cherny makes the case for a federal government that drops the old "New Deal" bureaucracy in favor of a new guiding and enabling role. In the course of doing so, Cherny presents American history through the lens of Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian philosophies of government and weaves it together with a demographic portrayal of what he calls "The Choice Generation".

The result is readable and interesting, but left me (admittedly, a Republican) with the feeling that Cherny is in the wrong party. He believes Americans want the ability to control their lives more than anything else, but doesn't grapple with the notion that lower taxes and control over one's financial resources are probably the single greatest enablers of personal choice. I'd like to see him deal with the question of financial freedom instead of just blowing past it.

Cherny's prose style has speechwriter written all over it. He clearly enjoys putting together words and phrases that would snap when spoken to an audience.

If you're interested in what the future of public policy looks like to a well-informed young writer of the center-left, give The Next Deal a try.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: If you're a big fan of central planning Utopias and collectivism, then this book is for you. Marx would be proud --- and I don't mean Groucho. Cherny was Gore's speechwriter?....Chortle. Well, I guess it's less embarrassing than being his "alpha male" coach. The Next Deal is headed to where Mr. Gore now resides.......oblivion.

Rating:
Summary: A most X-cellent read
Review: This book is a refreshing departure from the typical "generation X" fare of whimpering and simpering about the spiralling national dabt and budget deficits and those damned boomers. The author is a former aide in the Clinton Administration, but his past political engagements do not interfere with his clear-sightedness in viewing the current political scene.

Cherny believes that the U.S. is on the cusp of a political and economic realignment on the order of what happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Back then, the nation went from being an agrarian society of farmers and small businessmen to an industrial society of wage earners and assembly line workers. In political terms, Cherny says, this came to be reflected in the New Deal government of large bureaucratic agencies. Today, the trend towards bureacracy is being reversed by what Cherny calls "the Choice Generation" that will demand greater accountability, variety, responsiveness, and flexibility in public institutions. He believes that government needs to update itself to reflect changes going on in the e-conomy so that it can effectively protect the interests of the people. He excoriates "Treadmill Liberals" and "Blockhead Conservatives" who do not appreciate this.

Unlike many younger writers, Cherny has a light touch and wears his erudition gracefully. He glides effortlessly over the panorama of U.S. history and economic issues and weaves his thesis out of many disparate sources from Adam Smith to Frederick Winslow Taylor to Herbert Croly to modern political scientists. His balance and objectivity are also very good. His prose is crisp and clear.

It is too early to say that Cherny is the next Walter Lippmann or Herbert Croly, but this is an important contribution to the dialogue on the proper role of government in America.

Rating:
Summary: The Future of Politics - Hopefully
Review: This book is concise, well-written, and contains ideas that could potentially change the face of government in the near future. Cherny's thesis is that we need to give the government back to people. He notes that the big government that dominated so much of the nineteenth century was necessary to effectively create change in Americans' lives at that time. But today, the government has not responded to the needs of the "Choice Generation" - the younger generation today that has a broad range of choices, from ipod colors to salad dressings. Consequently, the government is less effective than it could be. To remedy the situation, he proposes some ideas ,some radical and some pratical, that, if implemented, would improve the situation of my generation and give the government more credibility. Personally, I think some of the ideas were great and would significantly alter the face of this country (the idea of requiring one year of public service for all young people when they turn 18, for example, is a great idea). Agree with them or not, the ideas included in this book are worth a read, and though it may be awhile, I think many of them will eventually come to pass.


Rating:
Summary: Cherny "Gets It" - Information Age Public Policy
Review: To have a 21-year-old Gore speechwriter mature into a 25-year-old public policy book writer and then have that book enthusiastically trumpeted by a conservative former Speaker of the House is a moment of unique achievement. Let me be clear. While Andrei Cherny is a liberal, he has written one of the most thoughtful books about public policy in the information age to be produced by anyone of any ideological background or from any partisan belief. Cherny does a stunning job of placing the progressive movement in the context of the rise of the industrial corporation and makes a profound case that the rise of information technology that moves from mass production to intense personalization and choice that will profoundly change the relationship between government and citizens.

At one level these are not new ideas. Alvin and Heidi Toffler explained the general principles in 1979 in The Third wave. What makes Cherny's contribution so impressive is the degree to which he embeds the technological changes of today in the parallel ideas and experiences of 100 years ago. Just as the rise of the industrial corporation created the systems and the structures that could be translated into professional bureaucracy and into systems such as the city manager form of government, so the development of the automatic teller machine, the self serve gas station, the internet based personal reservation system for airlines and the personally directed 401k all spell the rise of a personally directed citizen process that will transform the process of governance.

I disagree deeply with some of Cherny's ideas, but I am in awe of his ability to take big concepts and embed them in American political history in a manner which will give them context and meaning for any citizen who wishes to study them.

I unequivocally recommend this book to any citizen who wants to know how we can improve our country.