AJE Op-Ed: The dual failure of conservative policy and liberal politics [New]
My latest AJE Op-Ed is here. It begins like this:
The dual failure of conservative policy and liberal politics
Politicians must ‘recognise and nurture a new sort of dialogue between two different ideologies’, author says.Last week I wrote about Newt Gingrich’s incredibly destructive record and mindset. But as I wrote then, “If you want to know why the American political system can’t solve even most routine problems anymore, the reasons are larger than any one person”.
They are even larger than one party or one ideology. For the me-too-but-not-so-much style of “opposition” that the Democrats have increasingly practiced over the past 30 years is as problematic in its own way as Republican conservatism has been. After all, Wall Street deregulation was a bipartisan project, even though the Democratic base was ignored in the process. So, too, were NAFTA, the Iraq War, the no-strings TARP bailout, “No Child Left Behind”, and countless other initiatives that have chipped away at the New Deal legacy, the most successful governance system – or “political regime” – that the United States has ever known. The New Deal system took the US from the depths of the Great Depression to the pinnacle of world power while also giving birth to the largest middle class ever known in human history, and tearing down the legal barriers to full citizenship for women and minorities.
But conservatives saw this triumphant success as a nightmare that threatened the “natural order” of established privilege and power. Democratising opportunity and power, which liberals see as an unvarnished good, is deeply threatening to conservatives. With the legalisation of mass labour unions and collective bargaining in the 1930s, the democratisation of higher education and home-ownership in the 1940s, and the elimination of second-class citizenship for women and minorities in the 1950s and 60s, the US became a much freer and equal place to live than it had ever been before. This rapid expansion of “liberty and justice for all” resonated powerfully with the promise of the US as a liberal democracy.
Yet, this same promise and its progressive unfolding deeply scared and angered conservatives – and helped drive their activism. Backed by enormous private wealth, they set about organising a multi-generational movement to overthrow what the New Deal system created from the 1930s to the 1960s.
You can read the whole op-ed here.
What Do You Think?
6 Responses to 'AJE Op-Ed: The dual failure of conservative policy and liberal politics'
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David [New]
Wednesday, 21 Dec, 2011 at 9:02 pm
I’d be hard pressed to summarize the situation better. It’s unfortunate how often people talk about conservatives being against government or opposed to regulating the economy. The natural order, as Harcourt suggests, is the key.
The Big Hurt [New]
Tuesday, 27 Dec, 2011 at 11:46 am
harcourt’s book looks good. I think I’ll check it out. thanks david.
Tim [New]
Tuesday, 27 Dec, 2011 at 10:01 am
Great piece, Paul. I’d like to see the debate include an answer (or answers) to the question, what is the minimum people should get in return for being alive in our society and participating in our society?
This is one key way to look at this debate. Conservatives would say you get nothing for being alive and barely anything for participating (e.g. having a job). That somehow you are supposed to make wealth out of nothing but your sweat. Failing to take into account, of course, all the natural obstacles to most people turning sweat equity into something valuable. The number of winners will always vastly exceed the “losers” who tried but could not succeed.
Liberals, on the other hand, would (or should) have a list of things people get for being alive in our society and for participating in our society. Indeed, they would (or should) expand the definition of participation beyond simply working. The definition would include people who cannot work, for one reason or another, as well as children (instead of leaving them at the mercy of the success or probable failure of their parents or guardians).
Yet I never see the answer to this question in editorials and commentary. What exactly is a living wage, for example? Specificity might go a long way to aligning political rhetoric and policy choices with the results of the different surveys you reference, not least the GSS which goes back decades. It also might dilute the ideological part of this debate, the part that quickly turns fruitful debates into shouting matches and policy failures (which certainly is the point of conservatives: the current status quo benefits their projects).
A living wage should include the ability to buy food, clothing, and shelter for one’s family (even if single, or married without kids, or living together without kids) on one income, with the ability to buy a home within 5-10 years of starting to work (e.g. being able to save for a downpayment, if that’s what people want) and have 2-3 weeks of vacation each year. A living wage should be based on regional cost structures, too, with a federal minimum.
This kind of discussion I find more fruitful, along with the larger issues, because it gets people on the same page, makes people realize what they don’t have versus what they could and should have, among other benefits.
It also gets people talking about means to ends: for example, if the payroll tax is expanded to all income, of all kinds, then maybe you don’t need pension plans? And if you re-tax extreme wealth, having single payer health care or at least a public option to handle people insurance companies can’t handle, maybe that could free businesses from being involved in health care in the first place (and free individuals from having to worry about being financially destroyed by health care costs). And capping CEO pay, re-regulation to avoid booms and busts, permanent significant infrastructure spending, also would be useful means to ends.
I also agree with Robert Cruickshank that Occupy should take over progressivism, or at least the two should work in significant harmony with Occupy as a check to keep progressivism from sliding into neo-liberalism.
David [New]
Wednesday, 28 Dec, 2011 at 8:47 am
I agree completely that this is the sort of question we should be debating. A lot of people seem more comfortable with small ball – it allows us to avoid contestable questions about values in place of (less) contestable questions of fact. I think that progressives have the advantage when it comes to these questions.
Tim [New]
Wednesday, 28 Dec, 2011 at 7:11 pm
David, both are needed: the moral, philosophical, and other meta justifications AND the practical questions. The apparent non-existence of this question in public policy debates suggests to me one or both sides are more interested in rhetoric and perhaps scoring points that actually tackling problems and thereby justifying and making real their views of the world. What we get is a poisonous aristocratic status quo snuck in the back door over decades of propaganda, vote buying, and other tactics.
Also, asking this question acknowledges people have a right to exist in a minimally humane way. You can’t ask this question then tolerate extreme poverty (or extreme wealth, especially along with systemic poverty). Asking this question also would expose the essential inhumanity of their positions and beliefs.
The Big Hurt [New]
Tuesday, 27 Dec, 2011 at 11:44 am
tremendous article Paul. neo-liberalism is a giant and utter failure that has to be ostracized from the face of the earth. the importance of occupy in facilating this in unmeasurable
wouldn’t it be better to use ‘The dual failure of conservative policy and neo-liberal politics’ instead of ‘The dual failure of conservative policy and liberal politics’ in the title?