Hey! Minnesota! I Have A

Hey! Minnesota! I Have A Question! - I've been wanting to follow up on this idea for some time now. I finally have a moment or two.

I've been asking a lot of questions of my liberal friends, in a couple of different contexts: why do Minnesotans feel that they are so utterly superior to their neighbors and the rest of the country, and yet why so many of you feel Minnesotans, left to their own devices, will start gunning each other down in droves, and letting this state turn into a "cesspool" of...er, non-Minnesotan-ness.

Here's what set me off. In another forum, a correspondent said something that' s not at all unfamiliar if you're a Minnesota politics watcher:

Republicans are turning us into a cold Mississippi

Now, you hear this sort of thing all the time from Minnesotans, and I've always thought it was a curious view; I've known Mississipians, and they tend to be either fairly happy with their state, or they leave - much as Minnesotans do. And I've been all over the country, and I've only rarely heard such sentiments (outside of New York and San Francisco), and usually chalked them up to provincial arrogance when I did. But you never hear North Dakotans try to scare their neighbors into some political action by saying "If we don't, we'll be just a smart Minnesota".

So I've often wondered about the dichotomy I've seen in this past few weeks - and years - on this list, and statewide. On the one hand, blinkered smugness that'd make a Greenwich Village scene-hopper blanche with embarrassment; on the other, a sense that Minnesotans don't think other Minnesotans are all that bright underneath it all, without some higher authority to whack them into line once in a while. Maybe even (as we find in the Concealed Carry debate) just a little too depraved to be left on their own.

I should mention this - I'm not from Minnesota originally (although my family goes back about 125 years here, and was in fact involved in creating one of the great Minnesota icons). I moved here after college, in '85, from North Dakota. Yes, I moved here because I wanted a job that didn't involve diesel mechanics or teaching high school English. Some Minnesotans (in other forums) think that means I forfeit any right to criticize this state.

This place has a lot to be proud of - some of it even related to its tradition of public-private partnership. But there's a lot of dreck in that tradition, and for this state to stay healthy - or get healthy again - we need to look with a critical eye at a lot of assumptions. First and foremost, the notion of Minnesota Exceptionalism.

I didn't hatch the notion of "Minnesota Smug". There was a great article in the Strib a few weeks ago (which we covered in this space) by Steve Berg (no relation) that explored the idea in great detail:

The Other Berg reaches a few conclusions I'd contest, but on the way there he brings up some points that we (and that means "you, too") are going to have to deal with:

• Our political-social system, rooted in Scandinavian village traditions and codified during the seventies, may make "us" feel good on some elemental level - but they make Minnesota uncompetitive, which will eventually make Minnesota a worse place to live no matter HOW good you feel about yourself.

• Our sense of exceptionalism, rooted in a time when big (government, business, social programs) was king, is obsolete. Other states accomplish many of the things of which Minnesota is so proud - and do it in a way that stays competitive.

Before we get to my questions, let me clarify - there is much about Minnesota's public tradition to admire. It did a lot with a little, and in its time, it may have even been the right answer in many ways.

So I have a couple of questions for the madding horde:

1. Given that the economies of the world, nation and region have changed drastically in the past thirty years, and that huge, institutionalized, programmatic government tends to be a drag on innovation and competitiveness, how do you see Minnesota's traditional public institutions evolving in these leaner, more competition-oriented times to remain relevant, and to contribute to Minnesota public life again? By this, I mean more than "provide subsistence"; feeding the hungry is a worthy goal, not an end-result. Remember - while Wendell Anderson accomplished a miracle, today's state government is not Wendell Anderson's state government. It's for damn sure today's DFL is not Hubert Humphrey's DFL.
2. Much of Minnesota's public-private partnership was carried by the wealthy business families that happened, happily, to be so enthusiastically philanthropic. The Cargill family, the Dayton family, the Target and 3M families all contributed immensely to Minnesota's charities and arts. But today, most big business isn't family-run, it's controlled by shareholders who have a different set of priorities - and justifiably so. Our state needs to allow the NEXT wave of business leaders to move into a place that will allow them, ideally, to develop into the sorts of philanthropic partners that the state will need in the future. Unfortunately, the DFL detests business growth and investment (as we've seen on this list). So...what do we do?
3. Minnesotans are proud of our educational system - but, frankly, the system is incredibly sclerotic. Nevertheless, when faced with change, some Minnesotans sneer "hah - that'll make us like our neighbors!". Yet many of our neighbors are doing a better job. North Dakota, for example, has an educational system that is every bit as good as Minnesota's (as measured in terms of test scores), and better in many areas (including, of all things, the arts and music education of which Minnesotans claim to be so proud, but at which North Dakota actually leads the nation) at a fraction of the cost of Minnesota's system. South Dakota's business growth is staggering - largely as a result of governmental decisions. Wisconsin's welfare system is years ahead of ours (except in terms of "institutionalizing itself" and "Creating multigenerational dependence", which seem to be the only terms that matter to many on the left). And in terms of public/private partnerships, NOBODY out-does North Dakota, which has both a good business climate AND the only functioning State Bank and State Mill in the country. Question: Can Minnesotans drop some of their provincialism and learn something from our neighbors, who frankly do a lot of things better than we do?
4. To go along with the provincial arrogance I noted above, Minnesotans (or some of you) seem to have a paradoxical low opinion of other Minnesotans. It may well come from the Scandinavian tradition, with its very hive-y mentality. But for whatever reason, many of you seem to think that, left to our own devices, out of the watch of Big Mommy Government, we're a bunch of no-count wastrels. It came up repeatedly during the concealed carry debate; opponents insisted that Minnesotans would seize shall-issue as an opportunity to release their pent-up bloodlust on each other; being told that that pattern had NEVER occurred in 34 other states, including states to which Minnesotans believe themselves superior (Mississippi! Florida! Louisiana! Texas!), made no impact. The same thing holds true with the "frozen Mississippi" remarks - as if Minnesotans want to be anything other than what we are. Question: Do you (on the left) honestly believe that, without the hand of big, intrusive government to guide us, we're all going to jettison everything that we all love about this place? Why?

I have other questions, but those are the ones that matter.

It's a topic of great interest to me. I'm raising two children here, I've built a career, and I will eventually be involved in politics in this state. So yes, I do care about this state's future - and think that it will have to include a government that is leaner, institutional establishments (especially education and the U of M) that are less hidebound and self-aggrandizing, and a social class that both trusts the people and gives them some credit.

Posted by Mitch at May 19, 2003 11:09 AM