As the gates open on the 2016 election cycle — 18 months ahead of the general election — familiar presidential candidates set out to attract voter appeal through unprecedented contributions and uninspiring political platforms, all while America continues its digression from the strongest, wealthiest, most educated, and most promising nation on Earth. Entrenched partisanship and incompatible principles have paralyzed the country. American citizens are left feeling powerless with little faith in government and little optimism for the next generation.

Nearly by design, unbalanced economic and tax policies, overlapped with undisclosed trade agreements, worsen income equality instead of bolstering gainful employment.

A top-down education system replaces actual pedagogy with performance indicators and fresh produce with bottled condiments, instead of equipping an eager American youth with skill sets fit for the new global economy without the burden of debt.

Shortsighted drug enforcement policies, privatized incarceration, and police militarization exacerbate the crime they intend to quell.

Foreign policy and secretive intelligence programs embody an interventionism that undermines our bilateral relationships instead of safeguarding America and its citizens oversees.

A new undertone is growing in policy conversations that emphasizes a focus upon, and yet a clear dissatisfaction with, the outcomes of government and its policies. This subtext must ignite a grander conversation about a new form of American government — a new social contract — that prioritizes empirical arguments over moral ones, public outcomes over corporate ones.

“There is a lot of sentiment that…we need fundamental changes, that the establishment — whether it is the economic establishment, political establishment, or the media establishment — is failing the American people.” — U.S. Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders

Imagine agricultural policy that prioritizes affordable, organic fruits and vegetables, instead of corn syrup additives that lead to obesity and diabetes in America, all without undermining the agricultural industries of nearby emerging economies.

Imagine elections that allow lesser-known, third-party candidates onto the ballot in two-month, publicly-financed campaigns, instead of corporate-backed and super PAC-funded candidates handpicked by the two national parties before a vote is ever cast in gerrymandered districts.

Imagine public insurance programs that not only provide meaningful retirement income, affordable healthcare, food assistance, and temporary unemployment support, but shed the stigma of detrimental entitlement programs abused by an undeserving, untouchable American sub-class.

A new system is not possible until we deconstruct the existing one and expose the failures in its application and efficacy. From there, we rebuild.

A GRANDER CONVERSATION

This series, the NEW AMERICAN CONTRACT, challenges the foundational American principles and mythology that spurred a nation in the 18th century but have led to extreme polarization and policy stagnation in the 21st century. This series presents an alternative policy-making framework — the New American Contract — that is founded on evidence and pursues positive outcomes through greater expressions of collective will .

The hope of this series is to provide a thoughtful analysis that combines science, history, political philosophy, and public policy through imaginative and thought-provoking vignettes and contemporary examples.

The first volume of the series will contain no less than five parts:

1. A Challenge to Reality. The concepts of reality that underpin our existence, interactions, and perception of morality — and by extension, our government — need to be reexamined before envisioning a new social contract
2. A Revised State of Nature. The evolution of social contract theory — from theology, through secular enlightenment, to contemporary government — is incomplete. It must be redefined from an ecological perspective.
3. The American Mythology. The invigorated social movement that founded American by championing personal freedom and equality also resulted in a core set of political principles that, on a backdrop of Christianity, bred a culture of immutable morals and norms that have since polarized the nation.
4. Tenets of the New American Contract. Americans must enter a new social contract with one another, having recognized the failures of the existing system to produce the positive, collective outcomes it was meant to fulfill.
5. Barriers to Collective Will. In order for the New American Contract to take hold and succeed, barriers that inhibit the citizenry from dictating their own self-governance must be identified and removed.

Additional volumes will explore contemporary policy issues, applications of the New American Contract, and avenues for realigning the country and government toward this new paradigm.

Guest submissions are also welcome from writers who explore topics related to outcome-based and evidence-based policy and governance, which will hopefully cultivate an active Guest Series.

Political strife and partisanship are not unique to democracy nor America, not now, nor in the past. But the responsibility has always rested in the hands of citizens to redefine continually the social contracts that underpin self-government. Voting, donating, and petitioning are proving increasingly insufficient to drive change or reclaim control of American politics and policy that undermine the collective dream that founded this nation.

Rather, these complex problems require new thinking on social contract theory, a challenge to American ideals, a new form of policy-making that prioritizes outcomes and evidence over morality, and a willingness to take risks.

The goal of this series is to ignite the conversation of how to do that.

Let’s begin.

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