The Architect

The most fascinating section of Jeffrey Goldberg's look at the GOP in the summer of their discontent is the bit where erstwhile boy genius Karl Rove outlines his long-term vision:

Rove thinks that more voters now are being influenced by technology and religion. “There are two or three societal trends that are driving us in an increasingly deep center-right posture,” he said. “One of them is the power of the computer chip. Do you know how many people’s principal source of income is eBay? Seven hundred thousand.” He went on, “So the power of the computer has made it possible for people to gain greater control over their lives. It’s given people a greater chance to run their own business, become a sole proprietor or an entrepreneur. As a result, it has made us more market-oriented, and that equals making you more center-right in your politics.” As for spirituality, Rove said, “As baby boomers age and as they’re succeeded by the post-baby-boom generation, within both of those generations there’s something going on spiritually—people saying it’s not all about materialism, it’s not all about the pursuit of material things. If you look at the traditional mainstream denominations, they’re flat, but what’s growing inside those denominations, and what’s growing outside those denominations, is churches that are filling this spiritual need, that are replacing sterility with something vibrant, something that speaks to the heart of the individual, that gives a sense of purpose.” Rove believes what he has always believed: that the Christian right and, to a lesser extent, tax- and regulation-averse businessmen will continue to assure Republican victories.

The shallowness of the thinking here is striking. Ross observes that Rove seems unfazed by the fact that this vision of an increasingly market-oriented, increasingly non-materialistic society at least seems to be contradictory. Nor does Rove seem to have given any real thought to his eBay factoid; what are these people selling?

More to the point: where's the evidence? Ronald Reagan wracked up huge majorities. George Bush has much smaller ones, and needed to soften the conservative message in order to do it. I'd say the fact that it's now more feasible for people to "run their own business, become a sole proprietor or an entrepreneur" means people are more interested in seeing the development of a policy agenda -- federal guarantees of health insurance, elder care, and basic child services -- that facilitate that sort of lifestyle.

Comments

I wonder how many of these eBay entrepeneurs are discouraged unemployed selling shit from their attic to make ends meet. In other words, the reason eBay is their principal source of income is because it offers a better deal than a pawnshop.

Posted by jimBOB | June 2, 2007 11:30 AM

i'm actually quite curious how anyone would know how many people make their living via ebay? this is a "factoid" that seems to grip them in the bush-cheney administration; cheney made similar remarks (without the hard number) a few years ago in explaining how the economy was better than you think.

Posted by howard | June 2, 2007 11:34 AM

Nor does Rove seem to have given any real thought to his eBay factoid; what are these people selling?

I had a friend who made a bare living on eBay, buying and selling college textbooks. He'd buy at the end of May, when students tended to unload books for cash (on eBay and elsewhere), and sell in August. The margins were so small that he had to spend an enormous amount of time at it. Eventually it stopped being worthwhile. I suspect a lot of eBay people do something similar: act as middlemen without adding significant value.

My first thought about people who make a living on eBay, though, is that the common denominator is most likely to be "people who stay home all the time". I wonder how well that correlates with voting Republican, or for that matter voting at all?

Posted by RSA | June 2, 2007 11:51 AM

This little glimpse into the future from the mind of Rove reminds me of a great NewsRadio episode. Jimmy James meets some guy who claims to be a "business visionary", and brings this guru to the studio for an on-air interview with Bill. During the interview, Bill barely lets the visionary say more than a few words, which infuriates Dave who doesn't buy Bill's explanation that he "can spot a phony a mile away." When Dave has the visionary re-interviewed, all the guy says is simplistic nonsense like "The future of business is computers" and "Computers are really neat--once I get one, I'm gonna be really successful."

I don't really have a point, other than that the Boy Genuis' brilliance doesn't seem to extend much past running dirty campaigns.

Posted by Chesser | June 2, 2007 11:52 AM

jimBOB beat me to the exact punch by about 35 minutes...

From what I've seen, there's very strong evidence that the current calculation of American "unemployment" rates are basically fraudulent, or at least completely incommensurate with those of the past, or even those of Europe today.

Posted by RKU | June 2, 2007 12:06 PM

I'd say the fact that it's now more feasible for people to "run their own business, become a sole proprietor or an entrepreneur" means people are more interested in seeing the development of a policy agenda -- federal guarantees of health insurance, elder care, and basic child services -- that facilitate that sort of lifestyle.

Bingo.

Technological and economic trends give lots of Americans unparalleled opportunities and freedoms -- but they at least seem to be accompanied by greater risk. Today's Republicans can no more embrace raising taxes than the Democrats can endorse outlawing abortion. Unfortunately for today's Republicans, even the most innovative, market-friendly and well thought out safety-net enhancements cost money, which is why they GOP is increasingly a no-show in domestic policy debates.

Posted by Jasper | June 2, 2007 12:30 PM

It's Karl Rove. Why should anyone be surprised that he's totally full of shit?

Still, that eBay factoid is interesting, even if the figure is off (I suspect it is... what's the metric for "earn a living"?). I know that a lot of anthropologists who do exchange theory are fascinated with eBay and I imagine many economists are as well. I suspect that the number of people living off eBay is pretty modest, but the number of people making a not-insignificant amount of secondary income is pretty sizeable.

Posted by Philly | June 2, 2007 1:29 PM

Bill Clinton tried the "hey, look over there, eBay!" tactic in 1999.

Posted by digamma | June 2, 2007 1:56 PM

I wonder if Rove is including people who actually work for eBay in that number.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | June 2, 2007 1:59 PM

Markets and non-materialism are philosophically reconcilable. You could devote yourself to entrepreneurship as a calling rather than as a means to acquiring more stuff. I mean, read your Bhagavad Gita, kids: "To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits"

Perhaps not what Rove has in mind, though.

Posted by Consumatopia | June 2, 2007 2:02 PM

There are some companies that have 5 or 10 employees list all their goods on ebay every week.

It's their version of doing catalog sales.

There are also people that buy items at garage sales and list the items on ebay. You have to be aware of what sells for what price on ebay though.

Some things I've never had luck selling like DVDs, or fiction / nonfiction books. Computer games sell pretty easily, especially if it's a famous game like Planescape Torment. That's assuming you can get your hands on one.

I bought some sandals on ebay for my sister-in-law, and they were actually just shoes from Wal-Mart. They cost $11 + $5 for shipping.

I don't know if the seller found them on clearance at Wal-Mart, or if Wal-Mart dumps goods into a secondary market where they sell by lot.

The recent post office price increases have hit the ebay community fairly hard. Some of the big sellers -- people I'm assuming Rove is talking about -- may give up on it.

Postage went up because of gas prices, mostly.

Posted by stm8177 | June 2, 2007 2:46 PM

"Ronald Reagan wracked up huge majorities."

I don't think the word "wracked" means what you think it means.

Otherwise, and interesting and provocative post.

Posted by Joel | June 2, 2007 3:33 PM

Re: From what I've seen, there's very strong evidence that the current calculation of American "unemployment" rates are basically fraudulent, or at least completely incommensurate with those of the past, or even those of Europe today.

I agree that unemployment stats have a large uncertainty factor built into them, involving things like underemployment (on one side) and the underground economy (on the other side). But I don't see how this uncertainty could be any greater today than it ever was. So that comparing today's unemployment stats to those of ten or 20 years is quite valid since the uncertainty factor cancels out. As far as Europe goes, it's my understanding that different countries compile their stats in different ways so that cross-border comparisons (even within the EU) are always problematic. As for my own experience, I know no unemployed people, but then I live where the unemployment rate is spectacularly low. I'm sure someone living in Detroit or Cleveland, where depression-like conditions prevail, has a different perspective. I should mention however that I know more than a few people who may be working full time and even full time plus, but are having trouble making ends meet. There's plenty of jobs out there, but the quality of those jobs is what is lacking.

Posted by JonF | June 2, 2007 4:44 PM

The Internet has definitely enabled more enterprising people to become entrepreneurs and live life on their own terms. Aside from the obvious example of successful bloggers, consider a guy like Jonathan Coulton, the subject of a recent NY Times Mag article. He was an amateur musician who quit a job as a computer programmer to write songs. He ended up carving out a living in some non-traditional, internet-enabled ways, doing what he loves. While you're on his site, check out his cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back".

Posted by Fred | June 2, 2007 4:45 PM

What Rove says here is pure BS. The guy is the master of it. He probably has never spoken frankly about anything to anyone his entire adult life. Certainly not in a interview. IThe comments don't make any real sense, certainly not in the context of electoral pollitics. It's what happened to pop into his head at the moment.

There is no sense in analyzing this stuff because it has no meaning. It's weightless.

Posted by rapier | June 2, 2007 4:59 PM

There's an third absurd error, not noted by Yglesias, in Rove's account: the younger generations may be growing more "spiritual", but certainly not in a Christan Right direction. The generational increase in tolerance of gays remains downright remarkable -- in the latest Gallup poll ( http://www.galluppoll.com/content/default.aspx?ci=27694 ), those over 55 reject homosexuality as an "acceptable lifestyle" by 6 points, while those under 35 accept it as such by a staggering margin of over 3 to 1 -- and there isn't much difference between generations in their attitudes toward abortion.

All this self-contradictory nonsense on Rove's part just confirms to me that -- contrary to the Talking Heads -- the man was never a smart strategist; he was only (until recently) a very lucky one, two of his biggest pieces of luck being named Ralph Nader and Osama bin Laden. But there IS a third, more important factor. The Dems kept losing to Bush after 9-11 for one reason -- they've acquired a reputation as mindless kneejerk doves, and they showed (and, indeed, still show) no strong interest in correcting it. Thus their own constant insistence that they were being outwitted by an Evil Genius -- it relieved them of any need to consider the possibility that they were losing to him only because they themselves were acting like fools.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | June 2, 2007 6:35 PM

jonf, since you raise some important questions, let's take a moment.

as a quick point, let me say that, although i can't point to a specific study, i think it is entirely likely that it is harder to figure "unemployment" today than it used to be 20 years ago, due to the larger amount of outsourcing, self-employment, etc.

putting that aside, it is most certainly true that "unemployment" is subject to changing definitions. that's why some economists think the employment-to-working-population-ration is the best number to look at. It's currently running around 63%, which is good compared to the early '90s, 1.5% behind the mid/late '90s, and good compared to the immediate aftermath of the 2001 recession:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/05/the_employmentt.html

The issue of whether there are "plenty" of jobs out there is a rather open one: the fed's general assessment historically has been that we need 150K new jobs per month simply to keep up with growth in the labor force (although some at the fed now think that the number is more like 100K per month, on the grounds that we should have an expectation like 63% for the ratio and not a higher one as cultural factors like baby boomer retiring and perhaps the end of the major migration of women into the labor force come into play). even over the last several years, where job growth has been decent, that's about all we've managed to do.

and as you say, the big job growth areas have been health care (by which i do not mean the number of doctors), bar/restaurant employment, and until recently, the one set of "good" jobs, construction, which has most assuredly peaked.

Posted by howard | June 2, 2007 8:35 PM

"From what I've seen, there's very strong evidence that the current calculation of American "unemployment" rates are basically fraudulent, or at least completely incommensurate with those of the past, or even those of Europe today."

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a story on this. Of course, John Crudele at the New York Post has been telling us the same thing for ten years, but now that the WSJ has picked it up its no longer a fringe notion.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers have been pretty much made up since the early 1990s recession. Each month the agency "estimates" -iow pulls out of its --s- the number of people employed by small businesses just starting up. Except for January, this number is always positive and always reduces the unemployment rate. Recently, its been dwarfing the numbers produced by actual data.

Crudele pointed out in his last column that no Wall Street analyst seems to konw this, even though the BLS methodology is public, so everyone is always suprised by the low job growth in January, the one time the BLS subtracts jobs, and always suprised by the strong job growth in April, when the addition seems to be greatest.

The US vs Europe comparison is different. Essentially, there are different unemployment rates, depending on who you include in the work force. The BLS estimates all the unemployment rates, as do their European equivalents. Big Media just reports the more restrictive rates (U3, I think) for the US, and uses the more expansive rates for Europe (say, U6). The result is "higher" unemployment in Europe, though if you use similar measures the rates have been pretty much the same for years, which is what you would expect from labor arbitrage. I'm not sure, however, if the European agencies actually make up jobs.

Btw, the infation numbers are even more cooked.

Posted by Ed | June 2, 2007 9:52 PM

This new New Yorker article by Jeffrey Goldberg on "The Republican Implosion" shows just how out of touch elite media are. How can you write a long article about the Republican implosion without mentioning the word "immigration"?

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 2, 2007 10:11 PM

Re: that's why some economists think the employment-to-working-population-ration is the best number to look at.

I don't think that would be true at all, since that number is highly age-sensitive, counting as "unemployed" persons who are too young or too old to work: but does a 10 year or a 90 year old really qualify as "unemployed"? And obviously either aging or youthening of the population will show up as decreased particptaon in the workforce-- and our population is aging.

Re: The issue of whether there are "plenty" of jobs out there is a rather open one

It also depends very much where you are located. Here in S Florida there really is a serious labor shortage, despite high levels of immigration. On the other hand I certainly do understand the awful situation in Michigan (I'm from there, and have family there still) and similar states.

Re: and as you say, the big job growth areas have been health care

I did not say that, but the stats do indicate this. However many health care jobs are fairly high-skilled jobs and as such qualify as middle class jobs.

Re: bar/restaurant employment

Which are not necessarily "bad" jobs. My partner worked at country club for a while. Not only did he bring home a good chunk of change (35K) but also had better benefits than I did. Now he manages a resturant and is making even more, but we cover him under my current benefits which are far superior.

Re: and until recently, the one set of "good" jobs, construction, which has most assuredly peaked.

Truly accurate stats on construction employment are hard to come by due to the high levels of subcontracting and the employment of large numbers of undocumented foreigners. There is some evidence though that most construction firms are retaining and continuing to employ their highly skilled workers and that there's enough non-residential construction going on to support this.

Re: The Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers have been pretty much made up since the early 1990s recession

And it did something different before 1990? And also, your post omits any mention of the household survey, the methodology which has not changed as far as I know, in a long time. People are called at random and asked if A) they are working and B) if not, are they looking for work. If they answer No to A and Yes to B they are counted as unemployed. This has an obvious drawback-- it cfounts people as emplopyed who may be woefully unemplpyed-- and it's now possible the widespread use of cell phones as one's sole phone line (and generally an unreachable one if surveys like this) is also introducing a systemic error into this survey. Still, I would have to say that unless the cell phone issue is really a major distortion, this survey is about as accurate as it ever was.

Posted by Jonf | June 2, 2007 11:16 PM

Went to White Castle tonight for dinner. We were going to go through the drive-through, but there was a line so we walked inside. There was a help-wanted sign saying the starting salary was $8.25 per hour. Average fast food starting salaries (taking into account different areas' state minimum wages) might shed some light on the veracity of published unemployment rates. A wider premium over the local minimum wage would suggest a tighter labor market.

Posted by Fred | June 3, 2007 2:30 AM

jonf, you misunderstand: the jobs-to-working-age-population isn't skewed by problems of 10 year olds or 90 year olds; it's about the working age population, period.

what you said was that the quality of jobs is in question, and i agree: the jobs being created in health care are not big, well-paid jobs. they are admin and orderly type jobs. bar/restaurant jobs paying $35K are not good jobs on an income basis: that's almost $10K below median income.

as for construction, i have no idea where you're getting your thinking from: residential construction is a much bigger component of the economy than non-residential and is hurting, and there is no realistic way that non-residential can possibly replace it 100%, assuming that we don't see a slump in non-residential later this year. (btw, with the exception of undocumented workers, sooner or later, everyone with a construction job shows up in the business employment dynamics data, which tends to lag (q3, 2006 just came out: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cewbd.pdf).

Posted by howard | June 3, 2007 3:03 AM

there is nothing inherently contradictory with favoring market solutions and being non-materialistic. It is most commonly government interventions which are justified by purely material concerns.

Posted by pimp hand strikes! | June 3, 2007 6:33 AM

"Ronald Reagan wracked up huge majorities. George Bush has much smaller ones, and needed to soften the conservative message in order to do it."

Interesting reasoning, if you can call it that.

Let's try an alternate view: Bush the younger is not personally fond of conservatism, it's just a useful political guise, and one which chafes quite badly. But in Texas, it's a guise he needed to be elected.

But he IS quite adept at politics. People who get elected President are always good at that, however bad they might be at everything else. Such as actually governing...

So, rather than softening his conservatism in order to get elected, Bush applied remarkably precise political judgement by softening his conservativism as much as he could get away with. And nearly cut it too close the first time.

Rather better fits the facts of the last few Presidential elections, I think

Posted by Brett Bellmore | June 3, 2007 8:32 AM

Re: jonf, you misunderstand: the jobs-to-working-age-population isn't skewed by problems of 10 year olds or 90 year olds; it's about the working age population, period.

If that's true then I'm glad to learn it since my impression was that this number was taken over the whole population. Do you know what the age spread is? 16-65 would seem reasonable.

Re: the jobs being created in health care are not big, well-paid jobs. they are admin and orderly type jobs.

I did not mean to imply that healthcare jobs all paid 100K a year. But we may differ on what is a "good" job. IMO (and depending on where one lives of course) anything paying over 30K with full benefits is a decent income. I lived an adequetely middle class life on salaries in that range. As recently as 2003 I was only making 38K. Had to be a bit frugal with money, but I certainly was not impoverished.

Re: the jobs being created in health care are not big, well-paid jobs. they are admin and orderly type jobs.

Median incividual income is lower than you think. But you may be talking about median household income, which is 46K (or was in 2005; I cannot find stats for 2006). Two people (spouses or doemstic partners) making 35K a year will easily beat that.

Re: as for construction, i have no idea where you're getting your thinking from

From an article I read in our local newspaper ststing that most construction job losses thus far have involved unskilled subcontracted jobs. The skilled workers (per this article) have not yet been seriously affected. But this was discussing the local job market too, and S. Florida may be different. For one thing we are out of room to sprawl (exccept at the far north end of Palm Beach County) so we have no new McMansion subdivisions to build and most construction you see involve either high rise condos, or commercial projects on land where existing structures have been torn down.

Posted by Jonf | June 3, 2007 8:58 AM

Just to return to the post for a moment: how plausible is it that small-scale entrepenuers, who support markets, would support Republicans? Being pro market is different from being pro-corporate bureaucrat or pro-inherited wealth; it involves establishing and maintaining institutions that provide all comers with an opportunity to compete on equitable terms. Being pro market requires respecting the rule of law - which is the baseline for equitable treatment of all - for which the GOP has only contempt. Moreover, the GOP seeks to use all levers of power to line the pockets of their most loyal supporters (the health insurance, energy, and pharmaceuticals industries). That's the antithesis of being pro-market, and its inceasingly likely that genuine entrepenuers realize this.

Posted by RichC | June 3, 2007 10:33 AM

Whats the contradiction between a market-oriented society and and non-materialistic one? Relying on the political process to allocate resources isn't going to remove any of the inherent materialism in allocating material resources.

Posted by Johan Richter | June 3, 2007 11:15 AM

to pimp hand strikes and johan, the contradiction is that rove specifically addresses an "entreprenuerial" personality. that's not just someone who says "i prefer market-based solutions to problems regardless of whether the market leaves me rich or poor.

johnf, you're right, i was referencing median household income, and you're even more right: we don't agree on what good jobs are!

brett, if you can demonstrate that you've been denouncing bush as a non-conservative, we'll accept your 8:32 premise. i know that for years i've been writing from the left, wondering why honest conservatives regard bush as a conservative at all, but by the contmporary (and debased) standards by which "conservative" is used when "right winger" should be, bush is as conservative as they come and was applauded as same by those who do call themselves "conservative." it's only now that he stands revealed as an epic failure as president that we seem to be hearing that really, he's not much of a conservative.

Posted by howard | June 3, 2007 11:23 AM

Re: you're right, i was referencing median household income, and you're even more right: we don't agree on what good jobs are!

Well, no matter what the economic is like it will always be true that half of all jobs will pay less than the median wage, but does that mean half of all jobs are bad jobs?

On the much larger issue, perhaps we can agree that the economy is so huge and diverse that it cannot be understood from, any single set of statistics taken over the whole nation. If you're a college-educated professional in Orlando or Boise you probably think the economy is doing fairly well these days. If you're a high-school educated blue collar worker in Akron or Syracuse you probably think it sucks. When I hear Bush et al. brag about how great the economy is, I know they're full of it; but when I hear folks here screaming that the economy is dreadful, I know that they're just as full of it. And a caution here for the next election: unless you're in the Rust Belt, don't run on a bad economy (assuming it doesn't really go to hell in a handbasket later this year), since it's going to leave people like me thinking you're totally out to lunch. John Kerry actually had a good take on this in 2004: not "America is on the ropes" but "America can do better".

Posted by Jonf | June 3, 2007 1:04 PM

I've been saying for years that Rove is no genius. His depth of understanding, which is in evidence here, was also obvious from the fact that they did an all out blitz at Nascar functions because they heard that "Nascar Dads" were the new soccer moms. Also, remember manned trips to Mars? Terry Schiavo (I'm sure Rove's fingerprints were all over that)? Campaigning in CA in the final days of the 2000 election? He is just plain stupid--but willing to go lower than anyone to get a vote--which makes him effective and dangerous.

As for the new e-bay economy, I know several e-bay entrepeneurs and every single one of them is pretty liberal or very liberal. Anecdotal data I know, but I'd be surprised if they voted much differently than any other cross-section of society.

Posted by john d'oh | June 3, 2007 2:35 PM

Yup. Rove not only decided that Bush could afford to spend his last few days campaigning to try and add California to his list of states because his nationwide victory was assured; he decided the same thing about New Jersey. Bush spent his last few days campaigning in those states, lost them both by landslides, and so -- if it hadn't been for a whole run of lucky chances (albeit no longer than the chain of lucky chances that gave the Dems the White House in 1976) -- Rove would have become a national laughingstock on a level not seen since Thomas E. Dewey. Even after the 2000 win, his stock would then have wilted quickly anyway if it hadn't been for one OBL.

On the other hand, let's also keep in mind that - if Bush hadn't bungled the Iraq War beyond the wildest dreams of his worst political enemies -- the Dems would not be mourning a narrow loss in 2004; they would be picking themselves up with a spoon. The political stupidity in the current situation cuts both ways. (It's rather like most of the Revolutionary War, in which it seemed as though the struggle would be decided depending on whether George Washington or Gen. Howe committed more blunders.)

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | June 3, 2007 6:19 PM