Fort Report: The Future of Democracy

This week I visited a 125-year-old bank in North Bend, Nebraska. Now in its fourth generation, the family owned bank recently discovered an architectural gem above the ceiling. Some diligent excavation work on the older, original side revealed hidden stained glass ceiling panels and gorgeous ornamentation on various beams. The bank is rightfully proud to showcase its history.

The story began when all of the banks in the area went under during the Great Depression. One of the banks reorganized itself and came forward with a proposal to the community: If you stay with us, we will give you 50 cents on the dollar now and pay you back the rest over time. It took the family bank 20 years, but every dime was paid back.

As a longstanding community institution, this local bank did not bring our nation down during the financial crisis of 2008. It did not benefit from insider class privilege that enabled liar loans and high-risk collateralized debt obligations. It did not help multinational banking conglomerates grow so large in hubris and reach that they nearly tanked our entire economy. All the same, the small Nebraska bank is besieged by regulations designed to solve a crisis it did not create. It’s not fair.

So why do we have a Nebraska institution of long history, community service, and economic success under assault from forces beyond its control? For years, a centralized government spinning webs of regulation across the nation combined with a market system trending toward transnational monopolization has created a collusion that benefits the big at the expense of the small. Unfortunately, a gulf has widened today between a neo-aristocracy of the powerful–and millions of people who feel increasingly disenfranchised and alone.

On a deeper level, the malaise so many feel about this system stems from a widespread apprehension that individual lives–—that our nation itself—–are losing identity and narrative. Social fragmentation coupled with economic disadvantage drives much of the contemporary distress. Instead of rising with the help of an ennobled leadership, America is confronting a crisis of democratic solidarity driven in part by self-interested oligarchy, a demoralized middle class, and a growing sense of alienation from the systems that are supposed to protect us. The slow creep of concentration of power has been unchecked by deteriorating social and political institutions.

Recently I spoke to a highly motivated group of students at the University of Nebraska on The Future of Democracy. I noted that democracy is not an election–—it is a philosophical ideal that begins with the realization of the dignity of each person, most fully understood and expressed in relational citizenship. Restoring confidence in our country requires a healthy balance of power, broadly shared and self-actualized through local communities. If our democracy’s potential is to be realized, we must champion the well-being of all Americans, living in community, as a first order priority, and more importantly, the primacy of society.

We have forgotten two important lessons. First, the government exists to serve the people, the people do not exist to serve the government. Second, the economy exists to serve persons and families, persons and families do not exist to serve the economy. We are not means of production or mere beneficiaries of services.

Small businesses like the bank in North Bend lead by example. The bank almost never experiences a loan default. Its customers rarely miss a payment. This sense of responsibility and dependability is embedded in our Cornhusker DNA, in our tradition of localized, mutual support, and accountability. Here we find the right answer for the future of democracy.