Radical centrism

Radical centrism, also called the radical center and the radical middle, is a concept that arose in Western nations in the late 20th century. The radical in the term refers to a willingness on the part of most radical centrists to call for fundamental reform of institutions. The centrism refers to a belief that genuine solutions require realism and pragmatism, not just idealism and emotion. One radical centrist text defines radical centrism as "idealism without illusions", a phrase originally from John F. Kennedy.
Radical centrists borrow ideas from the political left and the political right, often melding them. Most support market economy-based solutions to social problems, with strong governmental oversight in the public interest. There is support for increased global engagement and the growth of an empowered middle class in developing countries. In the United States, many radical centrists work within the major political parties; they also support independent or third-party initiatives and candidacies.
One common criticism of radical centrism is that its policies are only marginally different from conventional centrist policies. Some observers see radical centrism as primarily a process of catalyzing dialogue and fresh thinking among polarized people and groups.

Influences and precursors

Some influences on radical centrist political philosophy are not directly political. Robert C. Solomon, a philosopher with radical-centrist interests, identifies a number of philosophical concepts supporting balance, reconciliation or synthesis, including Confucius' concept of ren, Aristotle's concept of the mean, Desiderius Erasmus's and Michel de Montaigne's humanism, Giambattista Vico's evolutionary vision of history, William James' and John Dewey's pragmatism, and Aurobindo Ghose's integration of opposites.
However, most commonly cited influences and precursors are from the political realm. For example, British radical-centrist politician Nick Clegg considers himself an heir to political theorist John Stuart Mill, former Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George, economist John Maynard Keynes, social reformer William Beveridge and former Liberal Party leader Jo Grimond. The single tax movement and subsequent Georgist movement begun by 19th century journalist and political theorist Henry George with his landmark work Progress and Poverty has long attracted thinkers and activists from all sides of the political spectrum. In his book Independent Nation, John Avlon discusses precursors of 21st-century U.S. political centrism, including President Theodore Roosevelt, Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Senator Margaret Chase Smith, and Senator Edward Brooke. Radical centrist writer Mark Satin points to political influences from outside the electoral arena, including communitarian thinker Amitai Etzioni, magazine publisher Charles Peters, management theorist Peter Drucker, city planning theorist Jane Jacobs and futurists Heidi and Alvin Toffler. Satin calls Benjamin Franklin the radical middle's favorite Founding Father since he was "extraordinarily practical", "extraordinarily creative" and managed to "get the warring factions and wounded egos to transcend their differences".

Late 20th-century groundwork

Initial definitions

According to journalist William Safire, the phrase "radical middle" was coined by Renata Adler, a staff writer for The New Yorker. In the introduction to her second collection of essays, Toward a Radical Middle, she presented it as a healing radicalism. Adler said it rejected the violent posturing and rhetoric of the 1960s in favor of such "corny" values as "reason, decency, prosperity, human dignity contact". She called for the "reconciliation" of the white working class and African-Americans.
In the 1970s, sociologist Donald I. Warren described the radical center as consisting of those "middle American radicals" who were suspicious of big government, the national media and academics, as well as rich people and predatory corporations. Although they might vote for Democrats or Republicans, or for populists like George Wallace, they felt politically homeless and were looking for leaders who would address their concerns.
File:Joe Klein 2016.jpg|thumb|upright|Joe Klein, who wrote the Newsweek cover story "Stalking the Radical Middle"
In the 1980s and 1990s, several authors contributed their understandings to the concept of the radical center. For example, futurist Marilyn Ferguson added a holistic dimension to the concept when she said: " Radical Center... is not neutral, not middle-of-the-road, but a view of the whole road". Sociologist Alan Wolfe located the creative part of the political spectrum at the center: "The extremes of right and left know where they stand, while the center furnishes what is original and unexpected". African-American theorist Stanley Crouch upset many political thinkers when he pronounced himself a "radical pragmatist". Crouch explained: "I affirm whatever I think has the best chance of working, of being both inspirational and unsentimental, of reasoning across the categories of false division and beyond the decoy of race".
In his influential 1995 Newsweek cover story "Stalking the Radical Middle", journalist Joe Klein described radical centrists as angrier and more frustrated than conventional Democrats and Republicans. Klein said they share four broad goals: getting money out of politics, balancing the budget, restoring civility and figuring out how to run government better. He also said their concerns were fueling "what is becoming a significant intellectual movement, nothing less than an attempt to replace the traditional notions of liberalism and conservatism".

Relations to the Third Way

In 1998, British sociologist Anthony Giddens claimed that the radical center is synonymous with the Third Way. For Giddens, an advisor to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and for many other European political actors, the Third Way is a reconstituted form of social democracy.
Some radical centrist thinkers do not equate radical centrism with the Third Way. In Britain, many do not see themselves as social democrats. Most prominently, British radical-centrist politician Nick Clegg has made it clear he does not consider himself an heir to Tony Blair and Richard Reeves, Clegg's longtime advisor, emphatically rejects social democracy.
In the United States, the situation is different because the term Third Way was adopted by the Democratic Leadership Council and other moderate Democrats. However, most U.S. radical centrists also avoid the term. Ted Halstead and Michael Lind's introduction to radical centrist politics fails to mention it and Lind subsequently accused the organized moderate Democrats of siding with the "center-right" and Wall Street. Radical centrists have expressed dismay with what they see as "split the difference", "triangulation" and other supposed practices of what some of them call the "mushy middle".

21st-century overviews

The first years of the 21st century saw publication of four introductions to radical centrist politics: Ted Halstead and Michael Lind's The Radical Center, Matthew Miller's The Two Percent Solution, John Avlon's Independent Nation and Mark Satin's Radical Middle. These books attempted to take the concept of radical centrism beyond the stage of "cautious gestures" and journalistic observation and define it as a political philosophy.
The authors came to their task from diverse political backgrounds: Avlon had been a speechwriter for New York Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; Miller had been a business consultant before serving in President Bill Clinton's budget office; Lind had been an exponent of Harry Truman-style "national liberalism"; Halstead had run a think tank called Redefining Progress; and Satin had co-drafted the U.S. Green Party's foundational political statement, "Ten Key Values". However, there is a generational bond: all these authors were between 31 and 41 years of age when their books were published.
While the four books do not speak with one voice, among them they express assumptions, analyses, policies and strategies that helped set the parameters for radical centrism as a 21st-century political philosophy:

Assumptions

Our problems cannot be solved by twiddling the dials; substantial reforms are needed in many areas.
Solving our problems will not require massive infusions of new money.
However, solving our problems will require drawing on the best ideas from left and right and wherever else they may be found.
It will also require creative and original ideas – thinking outside the box.
Such thinking cannot be divorced from the world as it is, or from tempered understandings of human nature. A mixture of idealism and realism is needed. "Idealism without realism is impotent", says John Avlon. "Realism without idealism is empty".
Analysis
North America and Western Europe have entered an Information Age economy, with new possibilities that are barely being tapped.
In this new age, a plurality of people is neither liberal nor conservative, but independent and looking to move in a more appropriate direction.
Nevertheless, the major political parties are committed to ideas developed in, and for, a different era; and are unwilling or unable to realistically address the future.
Most people in the Information Age want to maximize the amount of choice they have in their lives.
In addition, people are insisting that they be given a fair opportunity to succeed in the new world they are entering.
General policies
An overriding commitment to fiscal responsibility, even if it entails means testing of social programs.
An overriding commitment to reforming public education, whether by equalizing spending on school districts, offering school choice, hiring better teachers, or empowering existing principals and teachers.
A commitment to market-based solutions in health care, energy, the environment, etc., so long as the solutions are carefully regulated by government to serve the public good. The policy goal, says Matthew Miller, is to "harness market forces for public purposes".
A commitment to provide jobs for everyone willing to work, whether by subsidizing jobs in the private sector or by creating jobs in the public sector.
A commitment to need-based rather than race-based affirmative action; more generally, a commitment to race-neutral ideals.
A commitment to participate in institutions and processes of global governance, and be of genuine assistance to people in the developing nations.