Opinion | If You’re Worried About the Future of Our Country, Do Something About It

In the early 1990s, when I was a co-senior partner at Goldman Sachs, younger people sometimes asked me for advice. I told them, “First, become really good at what you do, and then branch out to get involved in activities and issues in the wider world beyond your work.”

Our country and world face unprecedented and exceedingly complex threats, yet many people might feel that advice is less applicable than it used to be. We have no shortage of reminders that many of the forces affecting our lives, not to mention world history, are beyond our control.

But I believe that for these exact reasons, civic engagement — involvement in issues beyond the immediate scope of one’s personal life and work, undertaken for the greater good, however one defines it — is more important than ever.

Widespread engagement is especially needed, and especially powerful, at a time when democracies like ours face threats from autocracies abroad and intense social and political strain at home.

One of the gravest challenges we face today is the way the world’s autocracies — in particular Russia, China, North Korea and Iran — are increasingly working together to undermine the position of the United States. I would much rather live in a democracy, and I suspect nearly everyone I know would say the same — and the major autocracies face serious economic and social difficulties of their own.

At the same time, we are seeing that centralized government brings certain advantages in a dangerous world. For example, when China’s leaders decided in 2023 to move forward in their relationship with Russia, they didn’t need to give weight to the will of the people or the possibility of a backlash.

Yet democracies have an innate advantage their authoritarian counterparts do not: the potential that comes from a citizenry involved in society’s issues. An engaged citizenry can bring a wider variety of viewpoints to address our nation’s problems and allow us to benefit from the range of skills and abilities held by our people. No less important, when people are involved in the issues around them, it fosters a sense of community — something that our society badly needs during these polarizing times.

My engagement with the broader world has largely taken the form of work with politics and economic policy. But engagement does not have to take place in or around the public sector to be effective. My first real involvement in matters beyond my personal life and my career came when a friend of mine joined the board of the American Ballet Theater and asked if I would like to join as well. I knew nothing about ballet, but my wife and I had attended a few performances, and I thought it might be interesting. Moreover, if one believes, as I do, that art helps us understand and better live our lives, then engagement with a ballet company helps strengthen our society, too.

Nor must one join a board or governing body in order to spend time contributing to the greater good. Opportunities for engagement are available to all people, regardless of one’s location, background or resources. And whether this engagement takes the form of political activity, policy development and advocacy, the arts, education, charity work, combating poverty or so much else, our nation benefits greatly from our people’s active citizenship.

The potential benefit of an engaged citizenry is particularly great in the United States, because America’s nonprofit sector is vast. Nearly 10 percent of our private work force is made up of people who work for nonprofit organizations. Many of those organizations rely on volunteers in addition to paid staff members. From universities to houses of worship to hospitals to soup kitchens, our civic organizations rely on engaged Americans in order to succeed and play a major role in our economy and society. A citizenry made up of people who think beyond the contours of their immediate lives and careers may not be sufficient to solve the tremendous problems we face. But I believe it is necessary.

What is more, I believe that engagement with the world makes life vastly more interesting, meaningful and enjoyable. Over the many decades of my adult life, I’ve always had an eclectic curiosity — I’m the kind of person who has three or four books on my night stand that I am reading at the same time, and they are almost never about economics or politics. In this way, I’ve explored many areas that were new and interesting and that, as a side benefit, have often given me a better understanding of human nature and the human psyche.

This remains true, even though my formal education ended when I graduated from law school 60 years ago. For example, about two years ago, I began to learn that artificial intelligence was developing rapidly and had the potential to reshape many aspects of our world, yet I didn’t know much about it. I suppose I could be forgiven for this: I was born in 1938. One of the major technological advancements that year was the invention of the practical ballpoint pen. But I was curious about this new development and the impacts it might have. So I began to take twice-weekly, one-hour tutorials with an exceedingly knowledgeable young man who works in that field.

While I’m still far from an expert on A.I., learning about this new technology has been highly interesting and helped me feel more connected with the developments shaping our world. And to the extent that artificial intelligence has come up in policy discussions, I’m able to make a more meaningful contribution than I would have been two years ago, so my curiosity has been at least somewhat helpful to others as well.

It’s now been more than half a century since I joined the board of the American Ballet Theater. Looking back, I see that engagement has allowed me, in some small way, to be more constructive both in my own activity and as a member of society while giving me the feeling of greater personal connection with forces shaping the times in which we live.

At a time when addressing our many challenges can feel more complicated and daunting than ever, we all have the opportunity to become more involved in the world around us — and our country’s future will be profoundly influenced by whether we do.

Robert E. Rubin is a senior counselor to Centerview Partners and was the U.S. Treasury secretary from 1995 to 1999.

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