This general election season has seen its share of campaign narratives. Some areas of focus have centered on less-than-salient subjects (see Fox News' near-daily coverage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright during the primary season). Some have focused on race and gender. In fact, until the U.S economy took a nosedive, the campaign narratives struggled to focus on actual campaign issues.

Now that the election has found its primary area of focus i.e. the economy, the American voting public has directed its support to Democratic Party Presidential Candidate Barack Obama (D-IL). Pundits across the political spectrum insist that Obama's support is derived from the financial disaster that has struck the nation. Conservative commentators have even gone so far as to maintain that the Obama camp is taking political advantage of a crisis situation to push ahead its agenda and lock the narrative on the economy.

While these attempts at conventional wisdom are certainly the safe bets where Republican, Democratic, and Independent analysts are concerned, the actual explanation for Obama's widespread popularity in this election season may deal with a far more personal and complex matter related to human needs. In short, Barack Obama's vision for America successfully identifies and addresses the satisfaction of many salient areas crucial to improving the quality of life for the American working class - a suite of values Abraham Maslow conceptualized as his "Hierarchy of Human Needs".

In order to initiate a discussion of the connection between Barack Obama’s public policy solutions and their relationship to the fulfillment of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it is first necessary to understand precisely what Maslow’s Hierarchy consists of and the relative levels in play. Work is performed based on an individual’s needs on personal, social, and financial levels. Rarely does an individual work if there is not some real or perceived need to perform the work. These needs can be traced to the following basic hierarchy:

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

1 Physiological

Thirst, sex, hunger

2 Safety

Security, stability, protection

3 Love and Belongingness

To escape loneliness, love and be loved, and gain a sense of belonging

4 Esteem

Self-respect, the respect others

5 Self-actualization

To fulfill one's potentialities

In order to satisfy the primary needs of the pyramid, one must achieve a level of work that provides basic necessities, such as food, shelter, and tools for sufficient health. This work is performed on a paid basis and is contingent upon satisfactory compensation from affluent class production owners and managers. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is generally satisfied at the very primary level, as most paid work allows an individual to be able to avoid the maladies associated with starvation and thirst.

However, these needs can diminish when the upper levels of the hierarchy, which stress gaining a sense of belonging, increased self-esteem, and an intrinsic, self-actualization value that constitutes continuous human development, are taken into account. For years, public policies promulgated by Republican administrations have stopped short of fulfilling Levels 2-5 - which in public policy terms means an inability to penetrate into needs related to security, stability, and protection. By comparison, Obama's public policy solutions seek to satisfy these needs via universal health care and more equitable economic policies.

The levels of Maslow's Hierarchy addressed by Obama's proposed policy initiatives do not stop at the aforementioned safety needs. The need for self-actualization via attaining the personal value of one’s work is essential if the individual is to continue upon the path of continuous development both personally and professionally. Joan M. Kiel, writing for the Journal of Instructional Psychology to explicate regarding intrinsic values in 1999 (Vol. 26), points out, "Self actualization is defined as "a process of becoming", "the process of development which does not end", (Heylighen, 41), "the individual doing what he is fitted for - `what a man can be, he must be'", (Maslow 91), "a desire to become more and more what one is', (Maslow, 92), and ""being a mature, fully human person in whom the human potentialities have been realized and actualized", (Mittleman, 116). (Kiel, 1999, p. 167).

So where do these values and their relationship to fulfilling Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs become congruent with Barack Obama's public policy solutions and their acceptance by the low and middle-income working class? Perhaps this congruence is to be found within the bold, sweeping nature of the tax, health care, foreign policy, and accompanying economic policies that promise relief for the working class. Promises made to the working class via incremental adjustments simply have not delivered meaningful and measurable results to address many of the public policy problems that have plagued the working class for decades.

By virtue of its perpetually-increasing demands for progressively higher production, capitalism imposes very tight restrictions on an individual’s ability to meet Maslow’s Needs that are related to self actualization outside the workplace. This is primarily due to capitalism’s predilection toward failing to compensate workers at a rate congruent to that by which an organization and its aggregate economy grow. As B.D. Jones and F.R. Baumgartner explain via their article in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory in 2005, "It is critical to understand that a straightforward incremental policy process will invariably lead to an outcome change distribution that is normal. And vice versa: any normal distribution of policy outcome changes must have been generated by an incremental policy process. Any time we observe any nonnormal distribution of policy change, we must conclude that incrementalism cannot alone be responsible for policy change. That is why distributional analyses are so critical to policy studies." (Jones and Baumgartner, 2005). In other words, incrementalism threatens to provide more of the same where current capitalist practices strain the worker’s ability to receive just compensation. Incrementalism fails to bring about any significant social or policy changes – and thus struggles to be linked with any substantive improvements or policy changes that can work to better satisfy Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Barack Obama seeks to revamp the modern definition of "paid work" by formulating and implementing more equitable public policies. For working-class Americans, this means a reversal of the inequitable wage distribution and taxation system that has sought to widen the gap between the income classes. The meaning of paid work as commonly defined is an unattractive and tedious description. However, work need not be an arduous concept as commonly defined if utilized within the scope of Maslow’s needs and defined via Herzberg’s motivations. This is because work can be defined as a lifelong process in search of self-actualization – but with almost limitless potential for the individual with regards to development.

Kiel points this out in the example of the ‘open triangle’, stating, "In this new "Open Triangle" Model, the boundlessness of self actualization is evident. There is no end to one's potential - the process of development does not end. Workplaces utilize management development, quality circles, and continuous quality improvement initiatives to foster employee and company growth. The self actualizing person has also been defined as one "who is eager to undergo new experiences, and learn new ideas and skills" (Heylighen, 42-3). It is today and not fifty years ago that people are engaged in "lifelong learning". Again there is a boundlessness conveyed here as one desires to move forward in new endeavors. This is what the open triangle espouses." (Kiel, 1999, p. 167)

The aforementioned processes of self-actualization pre-suppose that basic Level One needs have been met via gainful paid work that satisfies essential tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy. Unfortunately, work has long been defined by most, if not all, of the dissatisfaction factors as related by Herzberg where the low and middle income classes are concerned. In particular, company policies, work conditions, and insufficient salaries have left the members of these classes struggling to realize work as a self-actualization tool. Present capitalist economic practices act as barriers to this development, as insufficient compensation parameters hold many individuals struggling to satisfy the primary needs according to Maslow. An inability of the low and middle income worker to realize the economic value of his work leaves his focus and energy striving to maintain the minimal standard of living and results in under-developed self-actualization.

For those assigned a status at or near poverty, this presents the two-tiered definition of work that allows it to neither satisfy the primary needs requirements nor the advanced needs components that lead to self-actualization. Therefore, the opportunity to succeed, have one’s work recognized, have successful work maintained, and attaining consistent advancement and personal/professional growth remains the definition of work for the affluent class and those who are sufficiently compensated for their paid work. Those struggling for recognition and accompanying financial compensation are made to struggle to overcome the barriers of paid work that leave their process of becoming bereft of any viable opportunity to succeed. Upon crossing the threshold of poverty and the low-income result of wage disparities, the worker is able to define work as a method of achieving personal growth and the advancement that so often follows.

If workers across the board are to define work as a lifelong learning process that leads to becoming more and more of what one truly is, then these economic barriers must be quashed and a process of equity implemented on a broad scale to the aggregate profit of the society. By virtue of Barack Obama's economic, social, and foreign public policy solutions, he is better able to connect with the American working class - and thus stands alone as the candidate best able to improve the quality of life and the value of work for those lacking fulfillment of one or more of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. This explains why his popularity has been so consistent during the primary and general election seasons - and why he stands to be inaugurated as the next President of the United States.

References

Kiel, J. M. (1999). Reshaping Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to Reflect Today's Educational and Managerial Philosophies. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 26(3), 167.

Jones, B. D., & Baumgartner, F. R. (2005). A Model of Choice for Public Policy. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 15(3), 325+.

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