THE ISSUE OF CLASSES AND THE MATERIAL REASONS FOR THE CURRENT INTEREST IN SOCIALISM
Harry Targ
(I
repost parts of an old essay because it addresses the issues of the changing
character of the class system in the United States. The changes described by
authors sited below from the 1970s remain a factor in understanding today's
politics. The accumulation of wealth by a few and the increased immiseration of
the many, by twenty-first century standards, coupled with a system that in
Harvey's words exacerbate "dispossession." constitute a salient
reality of American life. Also, these dynamics are global in character as well.
These changes are occurring irrespective of the kind of work people are engaged
in, whether service, intellectual, computer, agricultural or manufacturing and
whether the labor is domestic or "immigrant.")
The twenty-first century economic reality has created a new
class society with a dominant class of concentrated wealth at one extreme and a
growing class of economically insecure in the other. More and more of
those in the latter have become political activists, particularly among the
young. This new class society in the United States parallels similar economic
changes in both rich and poor countries. As a result of the changes in global
and domestic economies social movements have arisen over the years everywhere.
From Cairo, Egypt to Madison, Wisconsin, from Greece to Chile, from Syriza and
Podemos to the Sanders campaign, to the No Kings rallies and mayoral,
senatorial and campaigns in our own day the cry for change, often a demand for
socialism, is spreading. The outcome of this new activism is unclear but for
the first time in a long time, the prospects for positive social and political
change look promising.
The New Class Society
In 1999, Robert Perrucci and Earl Wysong published the first of four editions
of a perceptive sociological analysis that identified what the authors
identified as “the new class society.” They employed a Marxist and Weberian
analysis of class that combined workers’ relationships to the means of
production with their organizational position.
Using data reflecting
their synthetic definition of class, these authors concluded that the popular
portrait of a U.S. class system consisting of a small ruling class, a large
“middle class,” and a small percentage of economically and politically marginalized
people was, by the 1970s, no longer an accurate way to describe society. The
class system of the days of relative prosperity from the 1940s until the late
1960s, which looked like a diamond with a broad middle, had become a class
system looking like a “double diamond.”
In the new class society, the first diamond, the top one, consists of the
“privileged class” composed of a “super-class,” “credentialed class managers,”
and “professionals.” All together these representatives of privilege constitute
about 20 percent of the population. All the others constitute a “new working
class,” some living in relative comfort but most engaged in wage labor with the
constant threat of job loss and wage stagnation, some modestly self-employed,
and a large part-time labor force. This is the second diamond representing 80
percent of the population.
In short, the political economy that emerged nearly fifty years ago is one in
which a shrinking ruling class that owns or controls capital has accumulated
enormous wealth and dominates today’s economy. At the other
end an increasingly insecure working class in terms of jobs and income has
grown exponentially.
Peter Temin, an MIT
economist, confirms the earlier sociological work in his new book “The
Vanishing Middle Class.” This book also identifies an emerging two-class
society with wealth and power concentrated at the top and poverty and
powerlessness at the bottom. In what Temin calls the “dual economy,” the ruling
class consists of the finance, technology, and electronics sectors (FTE),
representing the top twenty percent as opposed to “the low wage sector;”
clerks, assemblers, laborers, and service workers who provide the comforts and
profits for the top twenty percent.
In summary, both volumes
suggest that in terms of wealth and power conflicts of interest have to be seen
not between the one percent and everyone else but between the twenty percent
who own/control/ or administer the capitalist system and the eighty percent who
constitute increasingly marginalized labor serving the interests of the wealthy
and powerful.
The Precariat
Guy Standing, a British
economist, has written about the “precariat,” a growing portion of the
worldwide work force, Temin’s “ low wage sector,” who live in economic
insecurity. The term, precariat, refers to a synthesis of the idea of the
proletariat, workers who sell their ability to provide labor to a capitalist
for a wage, and precarity, or economic existence that is unpredictable,
marginal, and insecure. Job scarcity and wage stagnation increasingly is
experienced by workers with professional skills and credentials as well as the
traditional working class.
Standing argues that all across the globe workers, particularly young workers, live in situations of economic insecurity and unpredictability, irrespective of credentials, that in the past guaranteed jobs and living wages. Of course, the precariat do not have any of the guarantees of union membership and their skills leave them often working on a part-time contract basis and in isolation from fellow workers. In addition the precariat include workers in the “informal sector.” These are workers who often will do anything to survive from day to day: for example, day labor, street vending, drug dealing, petty crime, or prostitution.
Accumulation by
Dispossession
David Harvey, a Marxist
geographer, revisited Marx’s description of primitive accumulation in his book,
“The Seventeen Contradictions of Capitalism.” Capitalism was created on
the backs of slaves, the slaughter of indigenous people, and the expropriation
of already occupied land. In other words, through kidnapping, forced labor,
slaughter, and occupation, capitalism was born. The expropriation of resources,
people, and land led to the accumulation of wealth that spurred development and
growth.
Harvey then argues that
the primitive accumulation of the fifteenth century is similar in outcome to
the “accumulation by dispossession,” of the twenty-first century. Today workers
lose their property and their personal income in a debt system that sucks their
scarce earnings and property. Examples include defaults on mortgage loans and
bank repossessions and governmental decisions to confiscate property for
purposes of urban redevelopment. Accumulation by dispossession, while not as
violent as in the era of primitive accumulation, has the same outcome:
expropriating the value of the work of the many for the riches of the few.
Growing Economic
Inequality and Urban Decay and Gentrification
Virtually every study of the distribution of wealth and income in the United States demonstrates a dramatic increase in inequality. Also studies sponsored by international organizations report that despite declines in worldwide absolute poverty, the trajectory of growing inequality in wealth and income is a central feature of the global economy. In addition, declining inequality between countries, such as that between China and the countries of the European Union, have occurred while inequalities within most of these countries have widened. In the United States income and wealth inequality which declined from the 1930s until the 1960s has returned to levels not seen since the 1920s.
The patterns of
inequality are visible in geographic spaces as well. As more and more people
are forced to migrate to cities, what Mike Davis calls “global slums,”
demarcations of areas of opulence and poverty become visible. Members of the
top twenty percent are consumers of expensive living spaces, elite schools, and
vibrant recreational facilities. They also lobby for public funds to create
recreational attractions that entice tourists to bolster local economies.
Gentrified city spaces are protected by fences and police.
On the other hand, the
bottom eighty percent live in varying degrees of poverty. Housing stocks
crumble, neighborhoods are overcrowded, public services are increasingly
underfunded, and populations are left to lead lives of quiet desperation and
intra-community violence. In the new class society different sectors of the
population live in isolation from each other, except when political conflict
and violence spread across communities.
Also in the new class
society youth become pessimistic about their futures. Despite the fact that
media and academic studies claim that upward mobility is tied to scholastic
achievement, the schools they attend are underfunded. And the cost of higher
education, the main source of credentialing the young, has become prohibitively
expensive. And the quality of higher education in terms of stimulating critical
thinking is being undermined.
For those who accumulate massive student debt the experience feels like a modern-day variant of indentured servitude. Jobs for those who do not attend college are scarce and reside primarily in the low-wage service sector. And so-called STEM jobs (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are not as plentiful as college promotional brochures suggest. Along with the precarity of the traditional working class is a rising precarity of a new working class of highly educated but unemployable young people.
Racism
Manning Marable
published a perceptive essay in 2006 entitled “Globalization and
Racialization.” In it he adapted, based upon the twenty-first century global
political economy, the prophetic statement by W. E. B. Du Bois that the problem
of the twentieth century was the color line. Marable suggested that the new
global political economy was based upon capital flight, as well-paid
manufacturing jobs left the United States for sweatshops in the Global South.
Unemployment increased in the United States. Downward pressures on wages
and benefits paid workers in poor countries reduced the economic conditions of
US workers. The decline of organized labor in the United States and the Global
South weakened the bargaining position of workers everywhere.
Marable suggested that the people most vulnerable to the massive changes in the global economy were the already marginalized people of color. Unemployment rates in poor and Black communities skyrocketed, particularly among youth. The new gentrification and shift in politics from welfare state capitalism to austerity led to declining public services in poor communities. This has had particularly devastating impacts on educational institutions.
With declining economic opportunities, a growing sense of hopelessness, draconian government policies such as the wars on drugs and crime, literally millions of African Americans, and other people of color, have become victims of mass incarceration, what Michelle Alexander calls “The New Jim Crow.” Finally, many states have laws that prevent former felons from voting. The Marable framework, which he refers to as “global apartheid” and “the New Racial Domain,” thus links globalization of production to racism; particularly growing unemployment and urban decay, criminalization, mass incarceration, and voter disenfranchisement. And the Trump Administration is criminalizing masses of immigrants and people of color generally.
Neoliberalism: the
Latest Stage of Capitalism
The so-called “golden
age of the US economy,” 1945 to 1968, may have been an anomaly in American
history. The United States emerged from World War Two as the economic and
military hegemonic power. The war led to a fourfold increase in United States
trade compared with the late 1930s. In 1945 it produced about 2/3 of all the
industrial goods manufactured in the world and US investments constituted about
¾ of all the world’s investments. With fears of stagnation accompanying the
war’s end, the Truman Administration launched a massive program of military
investment to forestall declining demand for US goods and services.
In terms of
international relations, the United States played an instrumental role in
establishing powerful international economic institutions, such as the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank. It helped rebuild an anti-communist
Europe through a massive financial aid system. It later established foreign
assistance programs for newly “independent” countries requiring their
commitment to the maintenance of a global capitalist system.
At home a United States economy was created that stimulated high mass consumption. People were socialized to believe that their self-worth was determined by the quantity and quality of goods and services they consumed. The new communication medium, television, educated viewers as to the products that were available (as well as the enemies overseas who were the threat to the domestic consumer society).
However, by the late
1960s, markets were glutted and demand for goods lessened even though wages and
benefits for some workers increased. Federal and state governments had been
increasing services such as education, health care, and transportation. Both profit
rates and consumer demand declined. Growing political protest against the
Vietnam war and racism across the country added to emerging economic
stagnation.
By the 1970s, the
squeeze on profits and reduced demand, was exacerbated by Middle East wars and
large increases in the price of oil, which made some corporations and banks
richer while economic stagnation, including both high inflation and
unemployment, ensued. At this point, the United States economy began a shift to
what David Harvey calls “financialization.” A small number of banks and
corporations, mostly US but also European and Japanese, began to shift from
encouraging manufacturing growth to financial speculation. A “new” debt system
was encouraged, one in which oil-poor countries borrowed more and more money
from bankers to pay for continued oil imports. In exchange debtor nations would
promise to carry out new economic policies at home: cut government spending,
privatize public institutions, deregulate domestic economies, and shift economic
activities from production for domestic use to production for sale in the world
market.
Thus, the new era of “neoliberal globalization” was initiated. The new system was driven by financial speculators, declining autonomy of nation-states, and the downsizing of wages and benefits everywhere. At the same time rates of profit for speculators increased and smaller numbers of banks and other financial institutions increasingly dominated the global economy. This system was initiated in the Global South, spread to Western Europe and after the fall of the Soviet Union and its allies to Eastern Europe. In the 1980s neoliberalism was embraced by Prime Minister Thatcher in Great Britain and President Ronald Reagan in the United States. The best way to characterize policy in the age of neoliberal globalization is “austerity,” reducing the economic opportunities of the many for the benefit of the few.
Neoliberal globalization
is the systemic source of the new class society (or the dual economy), the rise
of the precariat, accumulation by dispossession, growing inequality and urban
gentrification, and the expansion of racism.
A Revitalized Interest
in Socialism in the Twenty-First Century
As history has shown,
the accumulation of wealth and power by ruling elites, or dominant classes,
never goes unchecked. The drive for domination breeds resistance. And
resistance takes many forms: traditional revolutionary practices, building
alternative economic and political institutions, non-violent refusal to obey
the institutions that support economic misery and political repression, and
where practical, participation in electoral processes. Social change is
many-sided and several strategies together are most likely to bring positive
results.
History shows also that
struggles for change are broadly political, require organization, mass
mobilization, and education. Change requires analyses of the causes of the
problems needing solution and a vision of what a better future
might look like. And there is an inextricable connection between the causes of
the problems, the tactics needed to change the situation, and a vision of a
better society.
The analyses above highlight the changing character of the global political economy, emerging class structures, and the growing vulnerabilities of literally millions of people: young and old: Black, Brown, and White; female and male; gay and straight; and at all levels of education and training. At the root of the problem is the capitalist system, a system whose reason for being is the maximization of profit. People today are talking about a new society, a socialist society. Socialism implies a political economy in which people contribute their talents, their labors, for the public good and share equitably in the product of their labor. And socialism presumes democratic participation in workplaces, the political system, and the community.
FOREIGN POLICY: STILL THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Harry Targ originally
posted on Tuesday, October 1, 2019
As we enter the national election season we are gripped with a very
complicated constellation of forces. The Republican Party, once a “respectable”
advocate for “limited government,” benefits for the wealthy, and in general a
celebrant of the “magic of the marketplace,” has been transformed into a party
of racism, xenophobia, and a critic of whatever democracy exists in the US.
They are opposed to women, people of color, and many endorse the establishment
of the United States as a “Christian nation.”
While large percentages
of the US population, including radicals and progressives, oppose the
Republican agenda, the alternatives offered by much of the Democratic Party,
while woefully inadequate, sometimes have begun to address the needs of the
majority of people. In addition to criticisms that can be raised about domestic
policies advocated by many Democratic spokespersons, “the elephant in the
room,” that is foreign policy, remains the Achilles heel of Democratic Party
platforms. Since this essay was written and rewritten, the US has escalated
support for the war in Ukraine, dramatically increased its commitments to
Israel, maintained military bases in over 170 countries, expanded NATO-type
connections in Africa, and maintained sanctions in over 30 countries. It
continues to engage in efforts to crush the Cuban and Bolivarian Revolutions
and is launching a “New Cold War” against China.
Given this reality,
thousands of protestors came to Milwaukee to protest the Republican convention,
and similar numbers are expected to protest at the Democratic Convention in
Chicago.
What the essay below argued in 2016 and 2020 is still relevant today; that is there is an inextricable connection between domestic and foreign policy. A deep dive into the history of the Cold War from 1945 on, the changing US economy, and the perpetual wars that have occurred from then to now make it clear that the tasks of progressives remain combatting rightwing dictatorship at home AND imperialism overseas. And foreign policy remains “the elephant in the room.”
An Empire in Decline
United States global
hegemony is coming to an end. The United States was the country that
collaborated with the Soviet Union to defeat fascism in Europe and with Great
Britain to crush Japanese militarism in Asia in 1945. The Soviet Union, the
first Socialist state, suffered 27 million dead in the war to defeat the Nazis.
Great Britain, the last great imperial power, was near the end of its global
reach because of war and the rise of anti-colonial movements in Asia and
Africa.
As the beneficiary of war-driven industrial growth and the development of a military-industrial complex unparalleled in world history, the United States was in a position in 1945 to construct a post-war international political and economic order based on huge banks and corporations. The United States created the international financial and trading system, imposed the dollar as the global currency, built military alliances to challenge the Socialist Bloc, and used its massive military might and capacity for economic penetration to infiltrate, subvert, and dominate most of the economic and political regimes across the globe.
The United States always
faced resistance and was by virtue of its economic system and ideology drawn
into perpetual wars, leading to trillions of dollars in military spending, the
loss of hundreds of thousands of American lives, and the deaths of literally
millions of people, mostly people of color, to maintain its empire.
As was the case of prior
empires, the United States empire is coming to an end. A multipolar world is
reemerging with challenges to traditional hegemony coming from China, India,
Russia, and the larger less developed countries such as Brazil, Argentina, South
Africa, South Korea, and Thailand. By the 1970s, traditional allies in Europe
and Japan had become economic competitors of the United States.
The United States
throughout this period of change has remained the overwhelming military power,
however, spending more on defense than the next seven countries combined. It
remains the world’s economic giant even though growth in domestic product
between 1980 and 2000 has been a third of its GDP growth from 1960 to 1980.
Confronted with economic stagnation and declining profit rates the United
States economy began in the 1970s to transition from a vibrant industrial base
to financial speculation and the globalization of production.
The latest phase of
capitalism, the era of neoliberal globalization, has required massive shifts of
surplus value from workers to bankers and the top 200 hundred corporations
which by the 1980s controlled about one-third of all production. The instruments
of consciousness, a handful of media conglomerates, have consolidated their
control of most of what people read, see, hear, and learn about the world.
A policy centerpiece of the new era, roughly spanning the rise to power of Ronald Reagan to today, including the eight years of the Obama Administration, has been a massive shift of wealth from the many to the few. A series of graphs published by the Economic Policy Institute in December, 2016 showed that productivity, profits, and economic concentration had risen while real wages declined, inequality increased, gaps between the earnings of people of color and women and white men grew, and persistent poverty remained for twenty percent of the population. The austerity policies, the centerpiece of neoliberalism, spread across the globe. That is what globalization has been about.
Paralleling the shifts
toward a transnational capitalist system and the concentration of wealth and
power on a global level, the decline of U.S power, relative to other
nation-states in the twenty-first century, has increased. The wars
in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the spreading violence throughout the Middle East
have overwhelmed US efforts to control events. Russia, Iran, China, and even
weaker nations in the United Nations Security Council have begun to challenge
its power and authority. Mass movements increasingly mobilize against vial
regimes supported by the United States virtually everywhere (including within
the U.S. as well).
However, most U.S.
politicians still articulate the mantra of “the United States as the
indispensable nation.” The articulation of the myth of American Exceptionalism
represents an effort to maintain a global hegemony that no longer exists and a
rationale to justify the massive military-industrial complex which fuels much
of the United States economy.
Imperial Decline and
Domestic Politics
The narrative above is of necessity brief and oversimplified but provides a back drop for reflecting on the substantial shifts in American politics. The argument here is that foreign policy and international political economy are “the elephants in the room” as we reflect on the outcomes of recent elections and their ongoing consequences. It does not replace other explanations or “causes” of United States politics today but supplements them.
First, the pursuit of
austerity policies, particularly in other countries (the cornerstone of
neoliberal globalization) has been a central feature of international economics
since the late 1970s. From the establishment of the debt system in the Global
South, to “shock therapy” in countries as varied as Bolivia and the former
Socialist Bloc, to European bank demands on Greece, Spain, Portugal, and
Ireland, to Reaganomics and the promotion of Clinton’s “market democracies,”
the wealth of the world has been shifting from the poor and working classes to
the rich.
Second, to promote
neoliberal globalization, the United States has constructed by far the world’s
largest war machine. With growing opposition to U.S. militarism around the
world, policy has shifted in recent years from “boots on the ground,” (although
there still are many), to special ops, private contractors, drones, cyberwar,
spying, and “quiet coups,” such as in Brazil and Venezuela, to achieve
neoliberal advances.
One group of foreign
policy insiders, the humanitarian interventionists, has lobbied for varied
forms of intervention to promote “human rights, democratization, and markets.”
2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and a host of “deep state” insiders
advocated for support of the military coup in Honduras, a NATO coalition effort
to topple the regime in Libya, the expansion of troops in Afghanistan, even
stronger support of Israel, funding and training antigovernmental rebels in
Syria, and the overthrow of the elected government of Ukraine. Secretary of
State, Hillary Clinton was a major advocate for humanitarian interventionist
policies in the Obama administration, as was Vice President Joe Biden. These
policies continued since 2020. In addition, this perspective has been broadly
accepted by Democrats and Republicans alike.
Humanitarian interventionists have joined forces with “neoconservatives” in the new century to advocate policies that, they believe, would reverse the declining relative power of the United States. This coalition of foreign policy influentials has promoted a New Cold War against Russia and an Asian pivot to challenge the emerging multipolar world, largely a result of the rising economic and diplomatic influence of China. The growing turmoil in the Middle East and the new rising powers in Eurasia also provide rationale for qualitative increases in military spending, enormous increases in research and development of new military technologies, and the reintroduction of ideologies that were current during the last century about mortal enemies and the inevitability of war.
The “elephant in the
room” that pertained to the 2016 election and still does in 2024 is growing
opposition to an activist United States economic/political/military role in the
world. Many center/left Americans, to the extent that they were motivated by international
issues, saw the Clinton foreign policy record in 2016 and the incumbent
administration today as emblematic of the long history of United States
imperialism. Further, given the fact that U.S. interventionism and
support for neoliberalism have generated growing global opposition, many voters
fear a Democratic Party victory presidency in November, 2024 would extend
foreign policies that have already created chaos and anger, particularly in the
Middle East and the Persian Gulf.
Finally, to the extent
that economics affect electoral outcomes, the neoliberal global agenda that has
been enshrined in United States international economic policy since the 1970s,
has had much to do with rising austerity, growing disparities of wealth and
power, wage and income stagnation, and declining social safety nets at home as
well. And more and more Americans see the connections between burgeoning
military expenditures and inadequate resources for healthcare, protecting the
environment, ending homelessness, and generally providing for the
In sum, foreign policy
continues to be an “elephant in the room” as millions of Americans struggle
with the devastatingly inhumane policies at home and
abroad.
Harry Targ
Reclaiming
our Progressive Political Heritage
Our task in 2026 is to
continue to build a more progressive and humane society while pursuing a peace
and solidarity agenda in the international system. A central element of this
task is to continue mobilizing, educating and agitating for progressive reforms
and opposing the threat to democracy and well-being by corrupt, repressive, and
anti-democratic governments at the local, state, and federal levels.
Discussions about the pursuit of these tasks have been part of the political landscape at least since 2016. Many of these discussions revolve around assessments of the recent elections: contexts, organizing experiences, and outcomes. There has been discussion of tactics such as organizing grassroots groups, the internet, canvassing, and calling blitzes. And substantively debates abound about working within the Democratic Party and whether to address “socialism” or representing the “center.” . And there has been discussion of the critical nature of issues that need to be addressed: health care, climate change, racism and police violence, jobs, and, of course, militarism and wars. All of these conversations are useful and important as we strategize around elections in 2026 and 2028.
Historic Changes in the
Democratic Party
What seems missing from
these discussions on the election outcomes is an analysis that links history
and political economy to the changes that have occurred in the Democratic Party
from Keynesianism and the capital/labor compromise of the late 1940s to neoliberalism,
reflected in the sector of the Democratic Party that gained dominance in the
1980s, sometimes referred to as “The Third Way.”
Looking at the twentieth
century, Franklin Roosevelt’s presidential victory in 1932 and three subsequent
victories presaged both a transformation of the Democratic Party and public
policy from laissez faire to state-directed policies designed to address social
safety needs (creating jobs, supporting farmers, investing in public works, and
funding the arts (theater, murals, music, historical writing for example). It
was assumed that fiscal stimuli, putting money in workers’ hands would jump
start the economy. Fiscal stimuli were paralleled by increased government
regulations of banking, labor/management relations, and wages and hours.
To be clear, the New
Deal programs would not have occurred if millions of working-class men and
women had not hit the streets to demand them. And, to be clear also, as much as
the New Deal programs helped large sectors of the working class, workers of color
were disgracefully excluded from many of them. But nevertheless, the thrust of
public policy, mostly advocated by Democrats was for positive government.
The Democratic Party institutionalized the New Deal, the Fair Deal in the Truman years, and, in the 1960s, Great Society. Most white workers, and increasingly Black workers, saw the Democratic Party as their home. From the 1930s until the 1980s, voter studies showed majorities of voters identified with the Democratic Party.And even mainstream Republicans, such as Dwight Eisenhower, embraced workers’ rights to form unions and Social Security.
However, the Democratic
Party began its long decline in 1968, with candidate Richard Nixon’s appeal to
“the silent majority” and his embrace of a “southern strategy.” Nixon played on
growing frustration with Vietnam era protestors and the centrality of the civil
rights campaigns in American life. George Wallace became a popular racist
third-party candidate for president.
The last gasp of the New
Deal/Fair Deal/Great Society tradition was reflected in the overwhelming defeat
of populist presidential candidate George McGovern in 1972. Two years later,
because of his criminality, President Nixon was forced out of office and his
successor Gerald Ford lost the 1976 presidential election to Jimmy Carter.
These political
eruptions occurred in a decade, the 1970s, when the United States was
experiencing declining relative power in the world, both politically and
economically. In addition, the
contours of American politics were dramatically affected by the oil crises of
the 1970s, the inability or refusal of government at all levels to continue to
afford the supports that workers had come to expect, and the radical
transformation of production, highlighted by millions of jobs lost through
outsourcing and deindustrialization. The dramatic changes in the political
economy of capitalism and the increased appeal of racism were reflected in a
substantial change in the campaigns and policies of the Democratic Party
The Democratic Party and “The Third Way”
Jimmy Carter planted the
seeds for the shift in the Democratic Party from New Deal liberalism to
neoliberalism and the Party’s “Third Way.” Michael Jordan Smith
succinctly summarizes in a review of the theme of the recent book “Reaganland,”
by author, Rick Perlstein. Smith’s review refers to the book’s main point that
Perlstein refers to “the Democrats’ fatal abandonment of economic
fairness in favor of balanced budgets, deregulation, and fiscal conservatism.
Carter led and presided over this transition, over the objections of
traditional liberals including Ted Kennedy and Tip O’Neill. But Carter joined
with a revitalized business lobby, which gradually succeeded in persuading
Democratic politicians that neoliberalism was the only way forward. To this
day, the Democratic Party hasn’t fully recovered.” (Michael Jordan
Smith, “When Conservatism Triumphed,” The Progressive, August 17,
2020)
President Reagan’s 1980
message, which resonated with a work force that was experiencing seven percent
unemployment and double-digit inflation, was “Government is not the solution.
Government is the problem.” Armed with theories from conservative economists,
Reagan expanded dramatically the policies initiated by President Carter. These
included deregulation of the economy, lobbying for the privatization of public
institutions, downsizing programs of welfare and safety nets.
To secure support for
programs of austerity, Reagan began the process of destroying the influence of
the labor movement, criminalizing the behavior of people of color, and shifting
the discourse from poverty’s connection to economic failure to blaming the
victims of poverty for their own misfortunes. And, in the main, the
Democratic Party either only weakly opposed the Reagan austerity agenda or
cautiously supported it. What would later be called the
“neoliberal agenda” became the dominant ideological framework of discourse of
conventional politics.
In 1985, Washington D.
C. Democrats formed the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). The Council
articulated the view that the Democratic Party was losing its grip on public
support because it was “too liberal.” It developed a “Third Way” agenda that
was less committed to working people, was more hostile to people of color,
shifted policy advocacy from providing social safety nets to expanding law
enforcement, and was less vigorously supportive of government regulation. When
Bill Clinton was elected president, he enshrined the neoliberal agenda in the
program of the Democratic Party. Third Way Democrats no longer even pretended
to represent the interests of working people in policy even
though they continued to express empathy for the vast majority of people.
One stark optic of this
was reflected in a Frontline documentary on globalization which showed
candidate Bill Clinton meeting steelworkers at a plant gate during a 1992
campaign stop. He promised them that he would serve their interests,
particularly by opposing the controversial North America Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA). The next scene in the documentary shows Clinton meeting with financier
Robert Rubin, getting schooled on the “realities” of the modern economy
(PBS, Commanding Heights). Despite labor opposition to NAFTA,
including progressives in the labor movements of Mexican and Canadian workers,
Clinton leaned on Democrats in the House of Representatives to support it.
Clinton’s aggressive support of NAFTA was metaphorically analogous to President
Reagan’s firing of the PATCO workers in 1981 after they endorsed his candidacy
for president.
Thus, the “Third Way”
became a central feature of Democratic Party politics, with most Democratic
Party candidates running on platforms of a kinder, gentler “Third Way”
neoliberalism than their adversaries. But the reality is that the New Deal
tradition of government serving the needs of the people, mostly the working
class (as limited as it was) was seen by majorities of Americans as vital to
their lives.
And today, Third Way Democrats continue to oppose the progressive New Deal tradition of their predecessors. As one of their spokespersons, James Carville has put it: “in this century, if it wouldn’t be for the Democratic left wing, we might not have even had a Republican president. We sure wouldn’t have had one in 2000. And we sure wouldn’t have had one in 2016.”(“Carville: Far-left Democrats ‘part of the problem’ within party”, Ashleigh Fields , The Hill- 07/13/26).
In sum, given the
history of US politics and the Democratic Party, Carville and his Third Way
allies are a significant part of the problem, not the solution.
A response to one
of many articles on the Wisconsin primary.
Harry
Targ
Francesca Hong was an excellent candidate and has made great strides in building a left in Wisconsin. But this article like virtually all analyses since last Tuesday ignore the candidacy, constituency, and history of David Crowley, the winner. Milwaukee, as the ACLU reported, is one of the most racist cities in the US. The African American population makes up 38 percent of Wisconsin's largest city. Thirty-four percent of African American residents live in poverty. And one of their own was running for the statewide office never held by an African American. In short, the primary election had a win/win outcome. But we on the left need to contextualize our analyses and reflect on the connections between the contextualization and future political strategy.
And Wisconsin now has the opportunity to defy conventional tropes, encouraged by the corporate media, to build one progressive movement comprising both sectors of the Democratic Party (even including anti-MAGA Republicans) and the Democratic Socialists of America. The history of the Socialist and Progressive movements in Wisconsin provides a possible inspiration.
