In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

CHAPTER 5 The Ambivalent's Narrative Remember, I'm an egalitarian, not a liberal. (17) [L]ife is both fair and unfair. (20) It would be tempting to assume that what I have called the "ambivalent's narrative" consists simply ofan amalgamation of disparate parts ofthe critic's and supporter's narratives, that it is only a residual category of responses lacking an evident narrative structure (albeit a large residual category). This is not the case. Though the ambivalent's narrative does indeed share significant characteristics with each ofthe other two narratives, it remains its own distinct account. Ambivalents struggle with many of the same concerns about social and distributional justice that engage the critic's narrative, but they do so against the backdrop ofa keen sense ofthe limits ofgovernment effectiveness, as well as a concern for a healthy, growing economy, which they perceive to be at tension with the equalizing demands ofjustice. Thus the ambivalents' views are informed by a perception of the classic trade-off between equality and efficiency. They are, of course, not alone in this regard, for the negotiation of the apparent trade-offbetween equality and efficiency constitutes the field over which much of the battle between contemporary liberalism and conservatism has been waged. As Arthur Okun (1975) has observed, we might think of this trade-off as a bucket that carries resources from the rich to the poor. Unfortunately the bucket leaks; in making the transfer we inevitably lose some resources . The relevant questions are thus: How much leakage do we tolerate before we disapprove such transfers, and what kinds of transfers are worth given rates of leakage? The outcome ofthe ambivalents' struggle with this question yields many points of contact between their narrative and a set of views that has become known as neoliberalism (Rothenberg 1984). Both ambivalents and neoliberals, for example, tend to describe themselves as social liberals and fiscal conservatives . In fact, in ideological terms ambivalents can be thought ofas neoliberals without great distortion. I will summarize these points of contact in the final section of this chapter. In the ambivalent narrative's story line, heroes and villains are less starkly drawn than they are in the other two narratives, and their characters are in general seen in more problematic terms. To invoke once again Jerome Bruner's 123 124 Narratives of Justice conception of narrative form, narratives contain "plights into which characters have fallen as a result of intentions that have gone awry either because of circumstances, of the 'character' of 'characters: or most likely of the interaction between the two" (1986, 21). In the ambivalent's case, these plights are more the result ofcircumstances than ofcharacter. And the ambivalent's narrative offers a less emotive, cooler account of circumstances. Although it does locate socioeconomic victims, they are neither perceived to be the products ofa particularly blameworthy system on the one hand, nor are they themselves the objects of blame on the other. As in the other two narratives, I have isolated four core episodes or chapters in the ambivalent's narrative that largely organize the senators' views. I have called the four chapters "A Crimeless Victim," "Cleaning up the Margins ," "Educate! Educate!" and "Government as Empowered Umpire." "A Crimeless Victim" describes the actual conditions of the market economy and its distributional outcomes, and socioeconomic upward mobility. "Cleaning up the Margins" relates the ambivalents' notions of distributional fairness and their suggested approaches to correct the perceived problems of distribution and upward mobility. "Educate! Educate!" describes the approach toward the deeper socioeconomic problems that are perceived to lie behind the distributional problems. And "Government as Empowered Umpire" sets forward the significant though decisively limited role of government. Here, the ambivalents ' sense of the limitations of government effectiveness in promoting economic fairness, along with their concern with securing strong systemic economic performance and efficiency, appears to lead the narrative toward an emphasis on educational programs and governmental enforcement of civil rights instead of economic rights. As in the other two narratives, the material within these four chapters overlaps, but here each chapter is infused by a profound ambivalence and internal tension that is the trademark of the narrative as a whole. An Overview of the Narrative Ambivalents generally support the market system and its method of distribution . In their view distribution should be based most heavily on merit, considered as a combination of one's effort-primarily labor-and the quality of one's performance-primarily output. The market is seen to respond...

Share