This image by Marc Nozell licensed under CC BY 2.0

Last week I wrote about the substance behind Mayor Pete’s frequent use of the word “freedom” on the campaign trail.

I want to offer similar thoughts on another term Buttigieg uses a lot: intergenerational justice.

If you’ve heard or read more than one interview with Buttigieg, you’ve almost certainly seen him use this phrase. If not, here’s how Buttigieg described it in an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition:

INSKEEP: Is there one issue you want to leave us with that you expect to be the centerpiece of the 2020 campaign, whoever the nominee might be? BUTTIGIEG: I think the big issue has to do with intergenerational justice. There is a question now of what kind of world this is going to be in 2054, which is when I’ll reach the current age of the current president. And we have got to change the trajectory that we’re on so that mine is not the first generation to be worse off economically than my parents’ was. And if there’s one center of gravity to all of it, I think it’s this question of the future.

This is about as in depth as most interviews are going to be able to get on the concept, but there’s a lot more to understand about this 24-letter phrase Buttigieg keeps using out on the campaign trail.

It turns out intergenerational justice isn’t only part of the substance of Buttigieg’s candidacy — it’s also part of the strategy.

And if you read last weekend’s story, what I’m about to say will come as no surprise to you: intergenerational justice all goes back to John Rawls.

John Rawls and Intergenerational Justice

As discussed at length in The Case for President Pete, the vision Buttigieg’s offering the American people is one intimately influenced by the thinking of John Rawls, the 20th-century American political philosopher who authored A Theory of Justice in 1971.

Think of the theoretical framework Rawls offered as the intellectual connective tissue holding Buttigieg’s ideas and proposals together.

In case you need it, a very quick refresher on this framework:

John Rawls proposed a thought experiment — “the original position” — which puts people behind a “veil of ignorance” while they write the rules for a new society they are all about to enter. Their total ignorance of their status in the new society motivates them to write rules that treat all participants justly.

Rawls concludes the group of people would come to adopt two principles of justice (though the second principle is divided into two parts, so it’s really three principles).

The liberty principle. This one’s pretty easy to understand — it’s a claim that every person in a society has an equal claim to certain basic liberties which no government can take away. These liberties include the right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure. The equality principle, part 2: the difference principle. This is the trickiest and most often misunderstood principle. Rawls concedes that in any society there will inevitably be inequalities — in forms like poverty and educational access but also natural talents or gifts. To compensate for these differences, Rawls posits society should accept inequalities that work to the advantage of the worst-off. In today’s politics, this would be a justification for policies promoting social equity. The equality principle, part 1: the fair equality of opportunity principle. This one’s also not too complicated — it’s a claim that “offices and positions” (in all aspects of society — public, private, academic) should be open to any person regardless of any piece of their personal identity (such as race, sex, or social background). And Rawls notes it’s not about the positions formally being open — each person should have not only the right to an equal opportunity but also an effective equal chance.

You might notice the last two principles are switched in order from how they were listed in The Case for President Pete. This reflects the lexical priority Rawls placed on them by the end of his life.

You look refreshed. Now let’s tackle intergenerational justice.

A Fourth Principle of Justice

I know, I know — I said there were two (really three) principles of justice.

But there’s also a fourth: the just savings principle. Rawls introduces this concept in A Theory of Justice in a section titled “The Problem of Justice Between Generations”.

Here’s how Rawls describes it in Chapter V, Section 44:

“The just savings principle can be regarded as an understanding between generations to carry their fair share of the burden of realizing and preserving a just society.”

In other words, even though each generation has the ability to make decisions as if there are no future generations, the just savings principle says each generation has a moral responsibility to not destroy the democratic society. Instead, each generation ought to build, preserve, and pass on a just society to the next generation.

Where does the just savings principle fit in with the other three principles of justice? In his final work, Rawls states the inequalities tolerated by the difference principle — the second half of the equality principle — must be consistent with the just savings principle.

In other words, society must take the needs of future generations into account when considering how to handle present day inequalities.

Since all of this probably sounds intuitively correct to you, I’m only going to spend four paragraphs explaining the thinking behind the just savings principle.

Essentially, when any person situated in the original position has the veil of ignorance around them, that person does not know which generation they will belong to in the society they are building. They do not know what time in the society’s history or future they will be alive.

As such, those in the original position are motivated to create rules that will treat each generation justly, no matter when that generation arrives on Earth.

Eventually, those in the original position arrive at a solution to Rawls’ “problem of justice between generations”: the just savings principle.

So when Buttigieg talks about practicing intergenerational justice, what he’s advocating for — in Rawlsian language — is the application of the just savings principle to our democratic society.

Moving beyond Rawls, I’ll go ahead and state the obvious: in 2019, America is not living up to its moral responsibilities to promote and secure intergenerational justice.

Instead, we are becoming a country more and more defined by the injustices being foisted upon our youngest generations: runaway climate change, widening income inequality, and a $1.5 trillion burden of student loan debt, just to name a few.

To be clear, these are not the only injustices in our society. But they are undoubtedly some of the injustices that loom the largest — and they are becoming more problematic by the day.

You already know all this to be true. So do millions of other Americans.

So does Buttigieg. And herein lies the plan to reshape American politics.

Creating a New Paradigm

Again, if you’ve ever heard Buttigieg speak, you’ve almost certainly heard him say “intergenerational justice” several times. It’s a core part of his pitch, as is “freedom”.

His repetition of intergenerational justice and his attempt to reclaim the word freedom are two sides of the same coin.

It’s easy to dismiss these phrases as campaign buzzwords, but they’re not. They’re concepts with a substantive, well-thought-out basis to them, like the rest of Buttigieg’s candidacy.

Moreover, intergenerational justice, like Buttigieg’s interpretation of freedom, isn’t just intellectual substance. Intergenerational justice is also smart politics. It’s one of the keys Buttigieg is using to unlock our politics from the box it’s become trapped in.

Take a look at these remarks Buttigieg delivered to an overflow crowd outside a rally in New Hampshire on Friday night. Hopefully the video starts at 4:25, but if not, jump to that moment:

Jump to 4:25

Did you catch that? This time he didn’t say “intergenerational justice” — he said “intergenerational alliance”.

Whoa. What’s that?

Let’s take this one voter at a time. After all, that’s fundamentally how elections are won. We talk about them as mass decisions, but they’re actually millions of individual decisions made in the minds of each individual voter. Election results are just the sum total of all those individual decisions.

In short, Buttigieg is proposing we use the concept of intergenerational justice — and other concepts, like freedom — to try and flip a switch in the minds of voters who’ve become locked into a mental framework for viewing politics.

Perhaps it’s voters locked into a mental framework based on, say, returning America to a nostalgic past that never really existed and is never coming back, but morally justified through fear; grievance politics; and an inconsistent, patriarchal interpretation of scripture.

But if Buttigieg can successfully convince a voter to instead view politics through the lens of intergenerational justice, all of a sudden he’s provided that voter — no matter their age — a clear, consistent moral justification for voting and acting on issues that younger people have a greater self-interest in, such as climate security, income inequality, and the student debt crisis.

And the beauty of intergenerational justice is that it can also be applied in the other direction. It provides a moral justification for young people to support action on issues older generations presently have a greater self-interest in, such as the cost of prescription drugs and the impending retirement savings crisis.

Just as with Buttigieg’s lens of freedom, you can go on and on thinking of issues where an intergenerational framing could be applied. Gun violence. Housing. Childcare. Social Security.

Pretty neat, huh?

Whether looked at through the lens of intergenerational justice or through the lens of freedom, Buttigieg’s vision for America is one that binds generations together in common principle and understanding.

In other words, he is proposing a new framework for looking at our politics that doesn’t once mention the words liberal, moderate, or conservative.

He is attempting to alter voters’ basic notions of how our politics ought to be viewed and structured — thereby ditching the existing Reagan-era understanding so many of us have subconsciously adopted as the only way to look at public policy.

And if Buttigieg can successfully sell this framing — a radical, pragmatic new paradigm for viewing public policymaking in America — he can create an electoral coalition of vast size and strength.

After all, young people, the middle-aged, and seniors live in every single state and congressional district. It’s a coalition unrestrained by geography in the Democratic primary and the general election.

And as Democrats look to find the candidate best-suited to win in November 2020, consider this notion: the new mental framework Buttigieg proposes is a direct challenge to the conservative paradigm of politics that tells us to value lower taxes, looser regulations, and restrictive social policies above all else.

More than anything, Buttigieg’s candidacy is a head-on attempt to shatter the mental framework that movement conservatism built around our politics over the past 40 years.

It’s the boldest thing about Buttigieg’s candidacy — even more than his age or current job.

Buttigieg is offering America a way out. He is showing us a path that breaks from our past and embraces our future.

Buttigieg is offering a vision that doesn’t just pick a point on the political spectrum somewhere between center and left. His vision for our politics snaps the spectrum in half and discards it.

It’s a new paradigm for understanding our democracy — and for getting our country back to solving the problems we face.

Not convinced? Here’s Buttigieg explaining it in 51 seconds on Meet the Press this past Sunday morning:

This is not a drill, folks. You are witnessing the reshaping of American politics. One Mayor Pete interview at a time.