On Voting for Biden (or not).

Many of my friends and colleagues are trying to decide how they will vote come November. While they have no intention of voting for Trump, they are not sure they can support Biden. This I can fully understand. 

But let me start by saying this -- I do not engage in, nor do I tolerate, vote shaming.

If people decide, based on their political principles and value commitments, to vote for a third party that best represents their political interests, or not to vote at all because they reject the two party duopoly, that is their prerogative and I respect their decision.

There needs to be a recognition and acknowledgement, by the vote shamers, that the two-party system in the US radically narrows the range of political choice and is profoundly undemocratic. Among the 32 OECD electoral democracies, the US has the fewest number of “effective parties”. The number of parties is positively correlated with voter turnout.

Let us also appreciate the need for political parties and candidates to actually mobilize voters rather than taking their votes for granted, simply because they are not the “other” party/candidate; or assuming voters “have nowhere else to go”. Many of those who decide not to vote, or vote for a third party, may very well have been “de-mobilized” by the two parties.

There are many ways to think about and frame the voting decision in this election. I present here just one way in the context of viewing the vote as a political strategy, rather than the vote as a singular expression of one’s political ideological preference.

As a democratic socialist, I certainly have a vision for what kind of society I would like the US to become and this would involve, as a start, building social democratic institutions that both provide expanded opportunities for political and economic democratic participation and expression and, accordingly, a decommodification of the basic necessities of life as has been proposed through an economic bill of rights involving health care, education, housing, and employment.

Right now, we are nowhere close to this vision. But how do we get from here to there?

One way to think of this question is to consider the obstacles that must be removed in order to advance in the direction of a progressive social democratic agenda.

In that context I would consider the Trump administration to be the first and most significant obstacle, not only based on their reactionary right-wing extreme neoliberal socio-economic policies, but also because the administration is veering toward authoritarianism that could translate into a further extension of state sponsored repression directed at left wing activists specifically. Under these conditions, we are in an entirely defensive position.

Therefore, the first obstacle that must be removed is the Trump administration or, to put it more broadly and accurately, removing Trump is a vitally necessary, but grossly insufficient, condition for realizing a more democratic and humane society. If one follows this logic they might decide to “vote against Trump”. I put it that way because many people will have a hard time saying that they support, or are voting for, Biden. This is because they do not, in fact, endorse Biden or his politics. But in the two-party dynamic, to “vote against Trump” is essentially to cast a “vote for Biden”.

But that alone is insufficient because that is only the first of many obstacles to the realization of a social democratic agenda. The second obstacle that must be taken on is the deep-seated neoliberal ideology and policy agenda, that has been embraced by both parties, and which remains firmly established within the centrist corporate wing of the Democratic party. So far, there is no indication that the Biden/Harris ticket will depart significantly from this so-called “return to normalcy” which means a return to the neoliberal status quo that gave us Trump.

This means that, assuming Biden/Harris emerge victorious in November, it should not be considered a “win” because it just represents the removal of the first obstacle in a long-term political struggle. This is critically important because there is a long history of people on the progressive left declaring victory after a Democratic win followed by complacency and political deactivation (see 2008 and the victory of Obama). There is a reason that people say: “the Democratic Party is where social movements go to die”. This cannot happen. Once Trump is removed, the social democratic left can shift its energy, from a defensive to offensive strategy, against the corporate dominated Democratic Party establishment.

So, I offer this as just one way to think about the voting decision in November.

There are obviously many more factors to consider, in particular whether one resides in a “swing state”, and the importance of down-ballot races.

I welcome comments and feedback.

Thoughts on the Kamala Harris Selection

 

The choice of Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate was not at all a surprise and was largely expected for several reasons. It was decided that it had to be a woman of color and, among those woman considered, Harris had the greatest name recognition, had run as a candidate in the Democratic primary, had participated in the debates, and is a Senator from a major US state. In terms of conventional political calculation, this was clearly the obvious and safest choice.

In terms of electoral value, I am not sure it will make much difference. If the assumption is that women of color will more likely support a ticket that includes a fellow woman of color, the Democrats pretty much had that demographic wrapped up anyway. Geographically, California is a solid blue state, so there is no gain there either.

While the Harris announcement does provide some level of enthusiasm and resuscitation to Biden’s moribund campaign, which has benefited over the past few months less from Biden’s actions than Trump’s abject failure on every level, there is a distinction between enthusiasm and mobilization. People already planning to vote for Biden may now be more enthusiastic about the ticket. Whether the addition of a woman of color, alone, will now mobilize new voters and expand Democratic support is another matter.

Take, for example, those largely younger voters who actively supported the Sanders campaign. For that population, partisan attachment and/or the identity representation of the candidates are far less important than substantive policy positions and proposals. After all, Bernie Sanders is a 78-year old white male – not the age/race/gender identity characteristics one would expect to galvanize a multi-racial political youth movement – and yet he was able to mobilize and energize this segment of the electorate. What mattered was not identity or partisanship, but an unswerving commitment to social democratic policies from Medicare For All to the Green New Deal to the cancellation of student debt to an economic bill of rights.

But sadly, with the Biden/Harris ticket, the party is squarely in the hands of the centrist establishment and the corporate donors. For this wing of the party, “progressivism” is largely a matter of identity representation and recognition rather than substantive policy positions, with the former serving as a substitute for the latter; what Nancy Fraser has aptly described as “progressive neoliberalism”.

This was clearly the case with Barack Obama in 2008 who, as the first black president, was assumed automatically to be a progressive Democrat. It did not quite work out that way.

Likewise, Harris, as the first black female member of a presidential ticket, is simply assumed to be, by virtue of ascribed characteristics, also possessing a progressive worldview. But in the many media accounts of this historic VP candidate that I have reviewed, there is virtually no mention of what Harris brings to the ticket in terms of a political ideology, value convictions, or coherent public policy preferences. None of that seems to matter.

This does not mean Biden/Harris do not possess, or can’t develop, a policy program, even one that includes some of the progressive policy positions that emerged from the unity task force process, but right now this seems the least significant factor in how the Democratic ticket is currently being promoted.

This void is particularly conspicuous given the fact that the country is facing an unprecedented and monumental depression-level socio-economic crisis begging for a bold progressive and transformative policy agenda. In fact, it requires it. But instead, this is what we are hearing: “fighting for the best we are as a nation”; "rebuild this country"; “fix the mess created in the U.S. and abroad by Trump and Pence”; “Joe has empathy”; “Kamala Harris is smart, tough and a proven fighter for the country’s middle class”; “a president who understands who the people are, sees them where they are, and has a genuine desire to help and knows how to fight to get us where we need to be”. But nothing about the means or the ends.

Maybe simply rejecting, and not being, Trump, will be enough to win the election.

But for those who desire something more, in the sage words of Naomi Klein: “No is not enough!”

On Principled Non-Partisanship

The intense desire to remove the neo-fascist sociopath from the White House has resulted in an unwritten and unspoken, but very apparent, moratorium on critical commentary of Joe Biden or the Democratic Party (and I am sure now Kamala Harris). I and others have been the victims of this policy in the responses we receive from some of our FB colleagues who are now the informal enforcers of this creed.

Because all my classes, maybe with the exception of Data Analysis, are political and politicized, for which I make no apology, I introduce students to the concept and practice of “principled non-partisanship”. This simply means that if you have a set of value commitments or political/philosophical principles – like equality, democracy, transparency, right to privacy, etc – you evaluate political figures or political parties on the basis of those principles independent of the party or party affiliation. So, if as a Democrat you criticized the George W. Bush administration for violating the constitutional right to privacy in revelations on wiretapping Americans during the so-called “war on terror”, you also do the same when you discover that the Obama administration, as revealed by Edward Snowden, also violated the constitution. Selective application of one’s principles based on partisan attachment is “unprincipled partisanship”, something that has reached epic levels within the Republican Party under Trump.

Therefore, if the Democrats and Republicans both violate a principle I hold dear, but I only criticize the Republicans for that violation, it would be hypocritical generally, and specifically with regard to a principle I am asking my students to adhere to (do as your told, not as I do).

The fear and reluctance to criticize Biden if you want Trump defeated has a structural source in the American electoral system, or more specifically the two-party duopoly (on this I strongly recommend Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop by Lee Drutman). It produces a binary/zero-sum logic that has enormous implications for current political dynamics and discourse but as it applies here it means that any gain or advantage given to one party is automatically at the expense of the other party. Hence, to criticize Biden is to indirectly help Trump, almost by default. If we had a multiparty system, this would not be the case.

So, here is the alternative aphorism promoted by the moratorium enforcers: “if you don’t have anything nice to say about Biden or the Democrats, don’t say anything at all.” Just censor yourself.

Thoughts on Cancel Culture: ‘Faming’, ‘Shaming’, and Wokeness

The mass uprising over racist police violence, and the rise of the BLM movement, is one of the most significant political developments of the past thirty years. The extent to which it translates into an organized and effective social movement producing substantive, systemic, and structural change remains to be seen. In the interim, there is no doubt that we now have a vigorous anti-racist movement with widespread support among the US population.

While I do not want to downplay the importance of this level of social acknowledgement of the deep-seated racism that permeates American society, it has taken one form that I believe is ultimately counterproductive. This has been described most recently as “cancel culture”. This term has many meanings and is applied to many different politically motivated actions. Here is one definition: “Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.”

As a strident left-wing democratic socialist who takes pleasure in exposing the dysfunctions, irrationality, and hypocrisies of both the operation of the capitalist system and the actions of its functionaries, I can certainly sympathize with the intrinsic motives fueling the desire to call people out and cut them down to size. But my own need to destroy the ideological position and arguments of my adversaries is tempered by a larger commitment to the principle of freedom of thought, speech, and expression.

It is along these lines, in the midst of the recently heightened level of cancel culture activity, that the practice of cancel culture received widespread critical attention in the form of a Harper’s magazine letter signed by a large number of writers, political commentators, and public figures – including the unlikely bedfellows of David Brooks and Noam Chomsky – admonishing those who engage in this behavior. The objection to the practice was based largely on the broad principles of free speech, expression, and tolerance for open debate which they view as the “lifeblood of a liberal society.”

As one who shares with my students the University of Chicago statement that takes a strong position on the need for free expression on the college campus, I would be a hypocrite to object to the Harper’s letter. Generally, I agree with the spirit of that letter. On the other hand, I think it is an error to equate in any way the shaming/canceling actions by groups and organizations on social media with the institutionalized forms of state/corporate sponsored censorship, silencing and prosecution of whistle-blowers and journalists, and criminalizing protests and boycotts. Canceling from below is not the same as canceling from the top.

But my critical comments on cancel culture, pertain primarily to the practice as a political strategy. I think that politically it is not terribly productive and in some ways is counter to what we would like to emphasize and achieve as a progressive movement.

When we constantly make reference to racism in the anti-racist movement as systemic and structural, but we have people spending their time canceling individuals for verbal transgressions or insufficient acknowledgement of oppression, we are engaged in the “bad apples” logic -- reducing the problem to certain individuals and their attitudes and behavior. Changing or canceling these bad actors, or bad apples, will not address the source or the most pernicious aspects of a system generating racial oppression.

Further, it seems that many of the cancelled victims are often trivial figures that are not really in any position to translate their personal dispositions into any substantive negative consequence. At the same time we have lots of powerful individuals who have promoted racist, regressive, reactionary, neoliberal, neoconservative domestic and foreign policy that continue to play a role in government agencies and administrations, both Democratic and Republican, who deserve to be exposed for not what they say, but what they have done.

But lately, all that seems to be required to avoid getting canceled is merely are representative gestures and expressions of “wokeness”, or what is more generally described as “virtue signaling”.

On this count, I have noticed two reactions. There is what I call “woke faming” in which performative expressions of wokeness award people, organizations, or corporations with accolades for what are purely symbolic gestures independent of actions or policies (e.g. Wells-Fargo, AT&T Nike etc). This is come to be known as “woke-washing” – just another corporate Potemkin Village.

Then there is “woke shaming” for those who fail to express the desired or expected endorsement or acknowledgement. They are the victims of cancel culture.

All this reminds me of commentary by the political scientist Adolph Reed on Democratic Party liberals who, he argued, are always willing to “bear witness to the suffering” of various marginalized and oppressed groups, but never seem to be willing to put in place the policies that would meaningfully alleviate or eliminate that suffering. (Ironically, Reed himself was recently “deplatformed” when a NY chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America cancelled his appearance on a panel for his published piece on race and “disparitarianism”).

Finally, there is a reason that this form of woke anti-racism is so easily embraced and accommodated by corporations and the elite – it does not in any way threaten the institutions and structures on which their class privilege and domination rest. Expanding wokeness does not deduct from their wealth or property. They are more than happy to bring in the consultants such as Robin DiAngelo to train their employees on white fragility. But raising wages, sharing profits, or allowing workers to organize a labor union? That is a bridge too far.

I would hate to see cancel culture substitute for a more radical political movement and agenda that includes demands for defunding and demilitarizing the police, putting an end to policing, decriminalization of poverty, and public investment in community services. That will just play into culture war politics and do little to benefit marginalized and working class populations.

The National Disgrace of Student Debt Peonage

The National Disgrace of Student Debt Peonage  

Student loan debt has now reached $1.6 trillion and continues to grow. The average student loan debt obligation is now around $35,000, a record high. While there seems to be no end in sight to this madness, it is finally getting the attention of the political class. There have been some proposals by Democratic candidates to reduce or cancel entirely this monumental debt load. That is a positive development. 

But how did we get here in the first place?  

It is important to consider the factors that have contributed to this situation because they have broader socio-economic implications and are not confined to simply borrowing money to pay for a college education. Like most of the socio-economic horrors in the US, this one can be traced back to the 1980’s, when the neoliberal economic policy regime was being imposed and instituted under Reagan.

There were two simultaneous developments that would inevitably fuel a student loan debt crisis.  

First, you had a growing gap between the college and non-college educated population in terms of average earnings. This itself was a product of the neoliberal policies that accelerated outsourcing and offshoring of manufacturing (aka deindustrialization) while also launching an attack on labor and the ability of workers to form unions.   As well-paying union jobs in manufacturing disappeared, replaced by non-union service sector jobs, so too did a critical avenue to a middle-class, economically secure, life among those with a high school degree. Between 1979 and 2005 average hourly wage for those with a college degree went up 22%; for those with just a high school degree it declined by 2%. 

At the very same time, the ideology underpinning neoliberalism emphasized market rather than government solutions, private rather than public investments, and a rollback of social welfare programs. Students receiving public support for higher education through Pell grants and similar sources were lumped in with the so-called welfare freeloaders, leeches, and “tax eaters”. Rather than viewing higher education as a public good that warranted public investment, it was instead regarded as a private individual investment in one’s human capital and, therefore, the responsibility of the individual to finance on their own.  

For parents interested in their children’s future economic well-being, the human capital ideology informed a central feature of the parent-to-child socialization process. Every child was told at the earliest age that they must get a college education, without a college degree they would be losers in the game of life and would suffer from perpetual economic insecurity.  

And, thus, the higher education bubble was formed. Like the housing bubble where everyone was encouraged into home ownership, everyone should own at least a college degree. Just as the home is paid for with a home mortgage loan, one can pay for this indispensable college degree with a financial loan; just as home buyers were told that the home would increase in value and be a great investment, so too were students told that a college degree was the best investment for which there would be a healthy labor market return; just as home prices continued to rise, so too has tuition increased steadily over this period. When the value of homes collapsed, homeowners were under water and millions foreclosed; when college-graduate labor market opportunities collapsed, student borrowers were financially pinched, and are now defaulting on their loans in large numbers. And the two financial crises are related. A recent study found that that families assuming the financial burden and borrowing to pay for college, are also more prone to face home foreclosure.

There are also a broader range of negative consequences as a result of the combination of student loan debt alongside a labor market that provides far too few well-paying jobs. In the past, a student graduating with a college degree would find a job that allowed for independent economic security, the ability to rent or buy a home, and purchase all the amenities associated with a new residence. This provided an enormous stimulus to the macroeconomy through the demand for a wide range of goods and services. But under the current situation, we see far less positive macroeconomic benefit from college graduates. This is because today, among the population 18 to 34, 43% are living with parents or relatives, the highest percent since 1945.

As a logical consequence, the millennial generation is also the least geographically mobile compared to prior generations. Geographic immobility among members of younger generations was usually the result of three factors -- marriage, home ownership, and having children. What is significant today is that millennials are less likely than prior generations to meet any of these criteria. Again, we can attribute this demographic anomaly to the accumulation of student loan debt coupled with poor employment prospects.

More generally, every dollar used to pay off a student loan is a dollar that is not used to purchase goods and services in our larger consumer capitalist economy. So, what would happen if we cancelled all student loan debt? If we had a good old-fashioned debt jubilee?

A group of economists at the Levy Economics Institute conducted an econometric analysis to answer this question in their report titled “The Macroeconomic Effects of Student Debt Cancellation.”  Here is their conclusion: “the current policy of encouraging the expansion of debt-financed higher education has been a failure, and therefore a radical departure is in order….Student debt cancellation results in positive macroeconomic feedback effects as average households’ net worth and disposable income increase, driving new consumption and investment spending.” 

Of course, cancellation of student debt would only make sense alongside free tuition to prevent the next generation from ending up in the same debt-ridden hole. If everyone today requires a college degree, it is no different than a high school degree 50 years ago. Just as primary and secondary education has been viewed as a public good for which we all benefit as a society, and should therefore be provided cost-free to all citizens, so too today for a college degree.   

At the same time, we should ask: why should a college degree be the singular avenue to an economically secure, middle-class, life? It was not always this way. There are many high school graduates who might prefer a different path, and who have no interest in going to university. There should be economically viable options through apprenticeships and vocational training that provide students with an alternative career path, if they so desire. The key is to ensure that such careers are economically rewarding, and this will require, for these and all workers, the right to organize, and negotiate the terms and conditions of employment.

The current student debt crisis should stimulate some creative thinking about debt relief, universal free-tuition, and alternative career paths for young adults.

When the most highly educated generation in history is also the most economically insecure, there is obviously a serious structural problem with our socio-economic system. It can no longer be ignored.

David Jaffee is Professor of Sociology at University of North Florida.

Exit-Voice-Loyalty and Kneeling

Back in 1970, the political economist Albert O. Hirschman published a widely influential treatise titled “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty”. He introduced this conceptual triad to analyze the three options available to those who are dissatisfied with a particular organization, institution, or situation. 

Under the “exit” option, one simply leaves or “takes their business elsewhere”.  This is regarded as the market-based solution.  Alternatively, one can exercise “voice” individually, or through the organization of like-minded others, and demand change, so that the unsatisfactory situation can be acknowledged and addressed. Hirschman considered “voice” most consistent with the principles of democratic citizenship. Finally, there is the default option of “loyalty”, where one faithfully or silently supports the existing state of affairs.

How does the exit-voice-loyalty scheme apply to the current debate over professional athletes kneeling during the national anthem?

Despite the effort by detractors to interpret these protests as unpatriotic or disrespecting the military, the original act by Colin Kaepernick was explicitly designed to protest the widely reported police violence against black American citizens. The national anthem served as an occasion to express dissent and expose the hypocrisy of espoused American values alongside the brutal reality of racial injustice. As Kaepernick stated: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color”. Thus, Kaepernick and others were responding to what they considered to be an unsatisfactory state of affairs and chose, among the exit-voice-loyalty options, the constitutionally protected and non-violent act of voice, in the hope of raising awareness and improving conditions.

Those opposed to these actions often demand, instead, unconditional loyalty to the nation and its symbols, despite the well-documented record of disproportionate police violence against unarmed black men. In this context, loyalty means blind conformity and ritualized obedience.

It is interesting that the very conservatives who endlessly trumpet and celebrate the American virtues of individual freedom and liberty, are the first to demand that those citizens who dare exercise these freedoms be sanctioned, disciplined, and fired.  Freedom in theory; authoritarianism in practice. 

   

And if the disaffected are unwilling to exhibit loyalty, the only other option is “exit”. Those who protested the Vietnam war will be familiar with the phrase “America, love it or leave it”. Such invective is now directed at those who take a knee during the national anthem.  If you have a problem with the way law enforcement operates, move to another country.

In short, the opponents of dissent want to eliminate the option of “voice”; the one course of action Hirschman associated with democratic expression. There are now only two options – loyalty or exit. Take your pick.

Such a sentiment is a dangerous threat to democratic vitality. As the former General and Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned: “May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”

Ironically, sports fans are now faced with a similar array of choices.  Dissatisfied with the way athletes are expressing their dissent, fans are weighing their options – “exit” through boycott, remain loyal to their team, or actively voice their disagreement with the protest tactics.

I would suggest that sports fans and others keep in mind the original source for the athlete’s actions, and support the athletes in raising awareness and ultimately addressing the well-documented failings of the law enforcement and criminal justice systems. Rather than attacking the messenger, it is time to heed the message.

It's The System, Stupid

Imagine if we had a self-regulating political system that responded automatically to efforts to expand political participation and the freedom of expression, but in a negative fashion. For example, suppose every time a policy was proposed, or put in place, to allow citizens greater ability to express their preferences, the system automatically responded by reducing the range of policy issues that would be accessible to popular input.  Thus, expanding political participation and freedom of expression in the name of democracy would actually result in less democracy. How would we respond to such a situation? Would we simply give up trying to expand the opportunities for democratic expression? Or would we question and seek to change the political system that produced these perverse results? 

Now consider a comparable situation but in the economic system. Suppose every time we proposed a policy that would improve the working and material conditions of the citizens through, for example, a minimum wage or unionization, the self-regulating market system responded by producing  fewer jobs or by disinvesting and capital flight. Thus, attempts to improve the lives of workers would actually result in negative consequences for workers, and this would then be used as the basis for opposing any such labor reforms. How would we respond to this situation?  As it turns out we are much less likely than in the case of the political system to consider the system itself as the problem. Instead, we assume the system is a natural force that cannot be changed or modified [aka TINA – “there is no alternative”] and therefore our only choice is either to abandon all efforts, or work to accommodate the system to minimize the negative consequences.   

When people tell us that any effort to improve material conditions won’t work because the “market” will respond negatively and the action will be counterproductive, we need to consider the problem to lie not with the policy proposal but with our economic system itself.

The economist Michael Perelman [in The Invisible Handcuffs of Capitalism] has framed this issue similarly and more colorfully in the context of the Greek myth of Procrustes and the infamous Procrustean Bed. In that fable, Procrustes invites travelers to spend the night but they must conform to the dimensions of his bed which results in his sadistic practice of amputating limbs that are too long, or stretching the bodies of those who are too short. The Procrustean bed is the metaphor for a system that requires absolute conformity to its logic and the negative consequences for those who deviate.  This is how Perelman describes the operation of the capitalist market.

Recognition of the systemic sources of our problems has fueled a several movements aimed at fundamental political-economic change. One prime example is “TheNext System” project.  

Political-Economic Correctness: Neither the ‘N’ or the ‘F’ Word Shall Be Spoken

Political-Economic Correctness:  Neither the ‘N’ or the ‘F’ Word Shall Be Spoken

The US economy is in the throes of a death spiral that will ensure continuing slow growth, stagnant wages, and growing inequality. It is a sad commentary that that there is virtually no mention by either of the two major party candidates of the pernicious effects of what is now termed Neoliberalism, nor its pernicious appendage, Financialization.  In fact, the terms have been banished from political campaign discourse despite the fact they are routinely evoked by those analyzing the past 30 plus years of US capitalism. The consequences of neoliberalism, alongside financialization, contribute to an economic death spiral because they produce a vicious cycle that promises self-perpetuating economic stagnation.

Neoliberalism refers to the political-economic policy regime that emerged in the 1980s in response to economic crisis conditions of the 1970s. In an effort to reestablish corporate profitability, it elevated private corporate interests over all others through regressive taxation, anti-labor legislation, the evisceration of the social welfare system, “free trade” policies, and deregulation.  The role of government is largely reduced to creating favorable “free market” business climate conditions and reducing the obstacles to the free flow of capital investment, domestically and globally. One of the most significant consequences of the new policy regime was that corporations responded to this neoliberal environment by structurally downsizing and geographically relocating   their operations to reduce costs and enhance profits. This contributed to deindustrialization and the declining role of manufacturing.  

Financialization refers to the growing role of the financial sector in determining the priorities, and accounting for a larger share, of economic activity.  This can be seen in the way corporate decision-making is increasingly based almost exclusively on the anticipated reaction of financial markets, and how an increasing proportion of corporate profits are based not on production but financial speculation.

Neoliberal corporate restructuring and financialization have worked in tandem to undermine what has been described as the virtuous cycle of capitalism. Historically, self-sustaining and dynamic capitalism has depended upon a virtuous cycle that involves the following sequential process -- capital investment in production, employment, labor income, discretionary spending by labor on produced commodities, the generation of profit, and the net profit directed toward more productive capital investment, which starts the cycle anew.  The two critical and necessary conditions in sustaining this cycle are corporations reinvesting profits back into production of goods and services, and workers directing their income toward consumer spending on those goods and services.  Today this virtuous cycle is short-circuited at just these two points as a result of two structurally symbiotic features of the US economy stemming from neoliberal policies instituted in the 1980s – the outsourcing/offshoring of production and financialization.   

How have we arrived at this unsatisfactory economic state? 

Let’s start on the production side.

1.       In response to the economic crisis of the 1970s corporations restructured by outsourcing (aka subcontracting) manufacturing to make their companies leaner and meaner, and sourced manufacturing suppliers, or their own facilities, offshore. This contributed to deindustrialization and the disappearance of well-paying blue-collar factory jobs in the US, thus resulting in downward mobility and unemployment. This also put domestic workers in competition with cheaper foreign labor.

2.       At the same time, one central aspect of financialization was the transition from a philosophy of “managerial capitalism”, involving corporate decision-making by professional managers aimed at improving and expanding business operations, to a “financial capitalism” model that shifted corporate strategy toward the single-minded goal of maximizing “shareholder value”.   Other stakeholder interests – those of workers, communities, or the long-term viability of the enterprise – were subordinated to maximizing the return to shareholders. In order to ensure that managers would pursue shareholder value, their compensation packages included stock options which served to align this desired behavior with monetary incentive.  

3.       The “market”, and accordingly share price, responded favorably when corporations were able to sell off various units and divisions, downsize their labor force, offshore facilities or suppliers to low wage/deregulated locations, and cut costs. Thus, the financial sector both rewarded and reinforced corporate restructuring resulting in progressive deindustrialization.

4.       As corporations, under neoliberalism and corporate restructuring, were able to increase their profit share at the expense of labor’s share, they had large sums of money in search of profitable investment outlets. Since many of these corporations had outsourced manufacturing, the profits would no longer be plowed back into new or upgraded factories or production (which was now carried out by subcontractors, increasingly offshore) but rather into something with potentially higher returns.

5.       At the same time, financial institutions, newly deregulated under the neoliberal regime, developed and invented an assortment of exotic financial instruments to attract the growing corporate windfall. This fueled the further financialization of the economy and the upward concentration of income and wealth (see below).   

6.       Theoretically and historically, a rationale for allowing capitalists to retain the greatest share of profits was based on the assumption that they would plow them back into more investment and production in factories and new enterprises, and thus generate expanding employment and worker income. But today in the US, rather than a convergence, there is a divergence between profits and capital investment (see Figure 1 below). The delinking of these represents a fundamental failure of US capitalism.  Profits are no longer retained and re-invested in production; rather they are diverted toward financial instruments, or used for stock buy-backs to support or enhance share price. 

This is how the capital investment process necessary for a virtuous cycle has been short-circuited.

How has the consumption side of the equation been thwarted?

7.       While the financial sector both shapes and is the recipient of the flow of investment dollars, the broader production side of the economy is neglected, employment opportunities are curtailed, and income and wealth are further concentrated in the hands of financial engineers and their corporate clients.  For the average worker, who has experienced stagnation in buying power, or worse downward mobility, as the economy is restructured and globalized, debt becomes the means to sustain and support their standard of living.

8.       Consumer demand is not only depressed as a result of neoliberal economic policies that favor capital over labor producing stagnant wage growth, but an increasing portion of one’s income stream is diverted to servicing or paying off the various claims made by financial entities as part of car loans, mortgage, credit card, and student debt   (from which the financial sector benefits). This diverts what little income they receive back to the financial sector through debt service rather than into the consumption and spending that would stimulate business growth and employment.  And given the offshoring of production, much of the already limited simulative impact of consumer spending is restricted domestically to the retail sector as the actual manufacturing of commodities takes place abroad.  

9.       Thus we have a toxic symbiotic relationship between financialization and continuing de-industrializing disinvestment. 

 

It is important to note that as a result of the restructuring of our economy under the neoliberal regime, the financial sector is now in the most powerful political-economic position as the recipient of the diversion of monetary resources from both production and consumption.  Economically, the dominance of the financial sector has been identified by such establishment institutions as the Bank for International Settlements as a serious drag on “real economic growth”.  Politically, mainstream economists such as Simon Johnson speak of a “financial oligarchy” determining policy in the United States. Others describe the rise of debt peonage under a neo-feudal financial regime.  

It is the very power and influence of this sector that ensures, under out current political system, that their interests will continue to be protected by both political parties.

Two Recommended Sources on Outsourcing/Offshoring and Financialization

William Milberg and Deborah Winkler, Outsourcing Economics: Global Value Chains in Capitalist Development.  Cambridge Univ Press

Michael Hudson, Killing The Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy. Islet Press.

The Myth of Party Polarization

The Myth of Political-Economic Party Polarization

“I actually think the divide is not that wide…. When you go to other countries, the political divisions are so much more stark and wider. Here in America, the difference between Democrats and Republicans — we’re fighting inside the 40-yard lines”

President Obama, November, 2013

It is difficult to read anything about American politics today without coming across the claim that the political system is more polarized than at any time in recent history and that this is the source of current intractable gridlock.  However, as it pertains to the political-economic policy dimension, I believe the claim is false and is due to a misconception of what polarization would involve, and the actual type of division and animosity that actually characterizes party politics today.  

Technically, polarization of the political parties would involve each of the two parties moving in opposite directions toward the left and right ends of the political spectrum. A stylized example of a theoretical party polarization is represented in Figure A.  Here you have, over a 30 year period, the Democratic Party moving toward the left end of the political spectrum and the Republican Party moving toward the right end of the political spectrum. They are moving in opposite directions and toward opposing ideological poles  

  

A more accurate representation of the political-economic shifts of the two parties is presented in Figure B. Here we have, since 1970, both parties moving toward the right end of the political spectrum. But even though both parties have moved to the right, fueled by their dependence on and cultivation of corporate campaign contributions, the distance between the two parties can still widen if one party is moving more radically to the right than the other. This describes the Republican Party. As political scientists Mann and Ornstein put it in It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,  “The Republican Party has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”  When one of only two parties takes an extreme ideological position, sharp political division is the logical outcome.  This results in a growing distance between the parties despite the fact that they have been moving in the same direction.

The alternative perspective presented here on the issue of polarization is based on what we know about the Democratic Party, beginning with the Carter administration, but solidified under Clinton, that involved a clear departure from New Deal social democratic principles and an embrace of more conservative neoliberal political-economic policies. Among the most notable under Clinton were the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.   All three of these pieces of legislation moved the Democratic Party to the right as part of the “triangulation” strategy adopted by the Clinton administration.  The Obama administration has done little if anything to reverse policy in these three areas and, in terms of trade agreements, has actually pursued a deepening of the global neoliberal apparatus as evidenced by his promotion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

So, if the parties have moved in the same direction, what accounts for the real hostility and antagonism between the parties and party members?  I would like to offer two simple concepts, based on the existence of a two-party versus multiparty system, which might provide a partial explanation.

First is what I call zero-sum partisanship. This means that (as in a zero-sum game) any gain for one party (electorally or legislatively) is viewed as a loss for the other; and any loss for one is viewed as a gain for the other. Under this destructive arrangement, the notion that there might be a mutually beneficial agreement or a basis for cooperation or compromise between the two parties becomes increasingly unlikely.   

A second closely associated feature of our party system is binary partisanship.  As with a binary numerical system, you are either a 1 or 0.  One’s political identity, and the tone of political discourse, is shaped by one’s location into one category or the other. If you criticize a Republican you must be a Democrat. If you criticize a Democrat, you must be a Republican. If you are not a 1 you must support a zero. There is no space in a binary system between 0 and 1; nor is there the option for a 0 to choose a 2, as this would automatically be interpreted as assisting 1, and thus supporting a “spoiler”.

When Reince Priebus, the chair of the Republican National Committee, was recently asked why the party was now embracing Trump, he replied, "It’s a binary choice. It’s Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton."

Principled non-partisanship under the zero-sum and binary conditions becomes nearly impossible.  Antagonism and mutual distain becomes the norm.

All of this has produced partisan co-dependent relationship between the two parties; each depending on the other to serve as the nemesis against which to generate antipathy among their base.   Instead of offering a politically principled policy agenda, the parties are content to mobilize voters on the basis of the claimed horrors that will result if the opposition is victorious.

For example, in soliciting support and campaign contributions in the current election, Hillary Clinton has made the following pitch: “Donald Trump is not a normal candidate, and if he beats us, it will be more than a defeat at the ballot box — it will be a once-in-a-generation setback for our values and our shared idea of what America means.”​

Rather than proposing a progressive left agenda, as one might expect if ideological polarization were occurring, Clinton, and the Democratic Party of recent election campaigns, is content to run on defending the status quo from the reactionary right. This is aptly described by Matt Karp, in a recent article in Jacobin, as “fortress liberalism” – “the dominant mentality within the Democratic establishment”.

In short, the notion of political party polarization must be examined more carefully and critically as it suggests that not only is there extremism from both parties, but that the Democratic Party has somehow moved sharply to the left. On the central matter of political economic ideology, this characterization is clearly false. The fact that the greatest challenge to the Democratic establishment has come from the progressive social democratic left, and that that ranking officials of the Chamber of Commerce of Commerce and Wall Street moguls such as Michael Bloomberg are now actively supporting Hillary Clinton for President, provides further dis-confirming evidence of the ideological party polarization claim.

Property Party?

In the words of Gore Vidal:   “There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”

Exit, Voice, or Loyalty: Thoughts on the Sanders Movement

The 2016 primary election season has seen the greatest widespread dissatisfaction and defection from the two-party duopoly in modern times. For both the Democrats and the Republicans, members have challenged the party establishment and promoted insurgent candidates.  How will this all play out through the general election and beyond?  We can consider the case of the Sanders supporters.

One way to approach this question is to take Albert O. Hirschman’s brilliant conceptual triad designed to analyze the options available to those who are dissatisfied with a particular organization, institution, or situation.  The model offers three course of action – exit, voice, or loyalty.  Under the “exit” option one simply leaves or takes their business elsewhere.  This is regarded as the market-based solution.  Alternatively, one can exercise “voice” through the organization of like-minded others and demand change, so that the organization can be transformed into something more satisfactory. Hirschman associates this option with democratic activism. Finally, there is the default option of “loyalty” where one can continue to faithfully support, or remain. in the organization.

Hirschman’s scheme is conceptually elegant, and it can be applied to a wide variety of situations, but fails to consider fully the contextual factors that might constrain the seemingly “free choices” or options facing the social actor.  For example, in the case of a disgruntled employee, “exit” may be highly desirable but not feasible under poor labor market conditions of high unemployment.  Similarly, “voice” may seem an attractive option but there may be few opportunities or the consequences of exercising voice may be dismissal from the job.  What then appears, after considering and rejecting these options, as “loyalty” is in fact really a situation of highly restricted and constrained choice, or no choice at all. 

How do the three options of the Hirschman model currently apply in the short-run to the Sanders supporter? Many may choose to exercise the “exit” option. This could mean not supporting Clinton and either voting for another political party or abstaining all together.  “Voice” could involve working to change the Democratic Party from within so that it more closely aligns with the principles and policies of the Sanders movement. “Loyalty” would entail the strong partisan commitment of supporting whatever nominee emerges from the Democratic Party nominating process.

In the case of the Sanders supporter, there are also contextual constraints that limit easy choices.  One of these contextual factors is the political dynamic generated by a two-party system. As it applies to the exit option, under a two-party system failure to turn out for the Democratic Party, or casting a ballot for a third party, may serve to benefit the Republicans. One is then cast, no matter how unfairly, as somehow responsible for an outcome that may be the least desirable – in this case a Trump victory. 

Some variant of the “voice” option was incorporated into the platform drafting procedures with the appointment of Sanders’ representatives to participate in that process.  Voice can, in the short run, be further exercised through protests and demonstrations at the national convention.  But there are obvious constraints given the fact that the Democratic Party is a corporate dominated party institutionally devoted more toward defending the establishment status quo than promoting radical structural changes that would challenge the balance of social class power. 

Further, the very foundation of the Sanders campaign – as a “political revolution” dependent upon a long-term mass social movement – requires a non-institutionally regulated, sometimes-cacophonous, overture that will disrupt and agitate for substantive social change.   

For this reason, the post-Bernie led movement is best advised, over the post-election long-run, to combine “exit” -- from the shackles of the two party system (which has been the graveyard of social movements) -- with the “voice” of the various movements and existing organizations sharing common ground in seeking justice, equality, and democracy.  

Of course, this will require some level of organization to be most effective. Last night Bernie Sanders communicated the following to those supporting his campaign and movement:

“Our work will continue in the form of a new group called Our Revolution. The goal of this organization will be no different from the goal of our campaign: we must transform American politics to make our political and economic systems once again responsive to the needs of working families.”

Trump as Personification of 21st Century U.S. Capitalism

Many of those supporting Donald Trump for President base their support on his record as a successful businessman. But how did Trump amass his financial fortune? A closer look reveals that Trump is, in fact, the perfect personification of the current state of American capitalism -- an economic system that is based heavily on three strands of capitalist practice that today depart radically from the idealized version of the self-made entrepreneurial form.  Trump’s record as a business executive conforms closely to all three strands.

The first is patrimonial capitalism.  This term was introduced by Thomas Piketty in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century which charts the long-term trajectory of inequality in capitalist societies. His analysis concluded, as the term suggests, that those who dominate and direct our economy base their wealth increasingly on inheritance. It is largely family income and wealth that determines who will occupy the capitalist class rather than merit.  This does not mean that the principle of meritocracy is irrelevant as it does provide, if nothing else, a powerful legitimizing ideology along the lines of “I was born on third base, so I must have hit a triple”.

Trump fits squarely into the patrimonial model as his father, Fred Trump, amassed a net worth of at least $200 million and Donald inherited somewhere between $40 and $200 million. Donald also benefited throughout his business career from a long series of loan guarantees underwritten by his father.

Second is crony capitalism.   This refers to the close relationship between capitalists and government officials in which said officials provide capitalists with various favors (e.g. abatements, incentives, re-zoning, etc.) that translate into private profit. Donald learned the lessons of crony capitalism from his father Fred who developed powerful political connections enabling profitable opportunities in the building of public housing. Donald has built on those connections and that strategy throughout his life. This has included relationships with the City of New York for tax abatements, efforts in Bridgeport CT to have existing businesses condemned, the use of eminent domain in numerous locations to obtain property, and obtaining casino licenses in Atlantic City.  Trump has been quite open about his ability to make economically useful connections with any political official, and his “pragmatic” campaign contributions to both parties reflect this practice.

Opportunities for crony capitalism have increased under the neoliberal supply-side economic development model that privileges the needs of capital over the needs of workers and communities. As states and localities are charged with building favorable business climates for capital investment, and the number of so-called “public-private partnerships” increase, government favors can be rationalized as contributions to job creation.

The third outstanding feature of the contemporary US economy is debt-driven capitalism.   Trump proudly has proclaimed himself “the king of debt” and he claims he “made a fortune out of debt”. He has used what is now a common business practice that was the subject of a recent story in the New York Times on Trump’s business record in Atlantic City: “…even as his companies did poorly, Mr. Trump did well. He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen.”  A variant of this model, sometimes described as “vampire capitalism”, is the standard operating procedure for the private-equity firms which gained national attention when Mitt Romney was running for President.  As reported during that last presidential race: ”Borrowing lots of money and incurring bad debts is not how real businesses make money in a normal world. But we don’t live in such innocent times. Modern American capitalism is rife with sophisticated financial intermediaries who exploit flaws and complexity in the system, as well as insider connections, to make profits off of predatory behavior” 

So when people hold up Trump as an exemplary example of business acumen, it must be put in the context of U.S. capitalism more generally and the larger systemic failure of our political economy that concentrates wealth in an oligarchical fashion, allows government to be captured by narrow corporate interests, and economically rewards those who use financial sector debt for short term gain.

How Has The "Model" Free Trade Agreement with Korea Worked Out?

Free trade agreements, like neoliberal economic policy, are faith-based policies that are promoted by both the business interests that benefit from them and economic policy-makers captured by the ideology of mainstream economic thought, in spite of the overwhelming evidence for their negative consequences (for the larger economy and the working population).

Obama has been working overtime in support of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) but as reported by Lori Wallach of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, there is now more damning evidence for the utter misinformation (lie?) about these trade agreements.

“Today’s alarming fourth-year trade data on President Obama’s U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) arrived just as the Obama administration has started its hard sell to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). And that is a real problem for the White House.

The Korea deal served as the U.S. template for the TPP, with significant TPP text literally cut and pasted from the Korea agreement. And the Obama administration sold the Korea deal with the same “more exports, more jobs” promises now being employed to sell TPP.

And since then, our trade deficit with Korea more than doubled as imports surged and exports declined. The increase in the U.S. trade deficit with Korea equates to the loss of more than 106,000 American jobs in the first four years of the Korea FTA, counting both exports and imports, according to the trade-jobs ratio that the Obama administration used to promise at least 70,000 job gains from the deal.”

Read more here.

Fallacious Logic Informs St Johns River Dredging Project

The most recent development in the ongoing contention over the proposed St Johns River dredging/deepening has the St Johns Riverkeeper filing a legal challenge to block state permitting of the project. While much of the debate over the project has revolved around the environmental impact, and the classic tradeoff between environmental protection and economic growth, there is an even more fundamental question worth asking -- what is the likelihood that the presumed economic gains in jobs and revenue will be realized if the project actually comes to fruition? On that score, one can file a logical challenge against the project and its proponents who repeatedly commit a fundamental logical socio-economic fallacy known as “the fallacy of composition”.

This logical fallacy plagues many proposed economic development panaceas. The tendency is to isolate a single case, in this instance Jacksonville’s port, showing how investing in an infrastructural enhancement will make the port more competitive and result in positive economic benefits. But what appears as individually rational -- for a port to seek public funds in order to finance infrastructural expansion and meet the demands of carriers and shippers – may in fact be collectively irrational. This is because Jaxport is not the only port engaging in this activity. Every major port on the East coast is or will be as deep, or deeper, than Jacksonville. Once one considers the larger east coast port population, all pursuing the same strategies and competing for the same limited amount of containerized cargo, it should be obvious that the result will not be equally beneficial for all parties. Some will be more successful than others based on existing and cumulative advantages; and, collectively, scarce public funds will be expended on redundant infrastructure resulting in overcapacity and underutilization.

Avoiding the fallacy of composition would have led the Army Corp of Engineers to conduct a multiport analysis in determining the wisdom of recommending the St Johns River dredging/deepening project (but they did not). Understanding the fallacy of composition would make clear that when every port seeks to gain an advantage through costly infrastructure and channel deepening it will inevitably result in “destructive competition” where no net competitive advantage is gained by any port, while the bargaining position of the shippers and global carriers is strengthened. As one study of port competition concludes: “…interport competition results in an unnecessary and unrewarded transfer of wealth from local taxpayers and users to global firms.”

There is a second similarly relevant socio-economic fallacy known as Say’s Law -- that supply will create its own demand. This has been translated into the equally fallacious assumption made by advocates of the deepening project that “if we dredge, they will come”. But supplying a container terminal and deep water will not automatically produce a demand for port services, as that is contingent not only on the state of global trade but decisions made by the shippers and carriers, who, it turns out, have expressed a clear preference for Savannah and Charleston over Jacksonville.

Finally, one would be remiss if they did not make reference to the more well-known concept of “opportunity cost”. This refers to the lost benefit or value of an activity not undertaken because another course of action is pursued. As it pertains to the river deepening, one might consider whether the estimated $400 million local share of total project cost would be better directed toward an alternative form of public investment that might generate greater benefits for the citizens of Duval county, such as improved public transportation.

In short, one does not need to conduct a technical econometric analysis in order to assess or challenge the logical shortcomings of the proposed dredging project. It is remarkable, but not entirely surprising, that paid consultants conducting economic impact studies would overlook these fundamental, but inconvenient, socio-economic principles. What will be more inexcusable is if public officials actually decide to expend scarce taxpayer resources, in a time of severe fiscal strain, on such a highly speculative megaproject.

Jacksonville Oligarchy

The pattern of autocratic candidate selection should now be depressingly familiar to the citizens of Jacksonville. A political office opens up; a narrow wealthy elite segment of the population, or usually just one single member of the elite known as the “local kingmaker”, endorses a candidate; said candidate immediately becomes the odds on favorite to capture the election, and invariably emerges victorious.

The wishes and desires of the demos – that is, the participation of the people on whom democracy presumably rests – play absolutely no role in this process. We saw this with the endorsement of Mayor Brown, the anointment of Mayor Curry, and now it is playing out with lightening quick speed in the open 4th Congressional seat recently vacated by Ander Crenshaw. Former Sheriff John Rutherford has been chosen by the local powers that be. Case closed; citizens and democracy be damned.

More disturbing still, no one seems to care. Compare this with Hong Kong where recently tens of thousands of people hit the streets to protest the role of the Chinese Communist Party selecting acceptable candidates for their Chief Executive position. What we have in the United States generally, and in Jacksonville in particular, is comparable. Instead of a political elite, it is a corporate elite. But here in Jacksonville, as elsewhere, there is hardly a word of dissent as citizens have become habituated to the faux democracy that is our electoral political system.

Regarding the chosen candidate, there has been nothing said about the qualities Rutherford possesses that would recommend him as a member of Congress. Not a word on his policy positions on national issues, his aspirations, or his ideals. Apparently, the local oligarchy is content that he will represent their interests; but what about the interests of the congressional district’s larger constituency?

It is time that citizens demand a more democratic process and procedure for determining who will be on the ballot, and the choices they will be faced with when they vote for their Congressional representative.

Democrats vs Democrats

In Thomas Frank’s excellent latest book, Listen Liberal, on the conservative drift of the Democratic Party he highlights the fact that the party has largely devoted itself toward mobilizing and serving the interests of the professional-managerial class rather than the working class. More specifically, he notes the party’s fascination with highly educated professionals, the “creative class”, and the associated concept of innovation (technological and financial, the latter responsible for blowing up the economy). 

The growing rift between average workers and privileged professionals, and the Democratic Party preference for the latter (formerly known as "Atari Democrats"), emerged in full view in Silicon Valley as the Democratic Party was pandering to the venture capitalists, who happen to have the campaign contribution largess the party has come to crave. ​

After working in Silicon Valley for years, Morgan Quirk felt good protesting outside the home of a venture capitalist who funded tech startups and fundraisers for Hillary Clinton. He was part of a new splinter group of the liberal party, Democrats marching against Democrats in San Francisco, commuting tech workers against their bosses.

“They sell you a dream at startups – the pingpong, the perks – so they can pull 80 hours out of you,” said Quirk, a 26-year-old software engineer. “But in reality the venture capitalists control all the capital, all the labor, and all the decisions, so yeah, it feels great protesting one.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/bay-area-tech-workers-turn-out-to-protest-clooney-fundraiser-for-clinton-and-democrats/

Trump and the Double Backlash Boomerang

The rise of Donald Trump has generated a range of explanations for his electoral appeal. The most convincing explanations link his success to the actions and rhetoric that has been coming from the Republican Party since at least the 1990s.  A more accurate description of this dynamic might be what I refer to as the “double backlash boomerang”. It is a two-step process, with “Trumpenstein” as the end product.

The first backlash was identified most poignantly by Thomas Frank who introduced us to “The Great Backlash” with his book What’s The Matter With Kansas. Frank described how the Republican Party, unable to attract naturally the white working class on economic issues given their pro-corporate agenda and country club constituency, resorted to cultural appeals that painted the liberals, and by association the Democratic Party, as arrogant and condescending elitists who look down upon the working-class masses with disdain for their attachment to God, guns, and traditional family values.  Portrayed by Republicans as secular humanists intent on social engineering through government policies aimed at curtailing basic freedoms and liberty, liberals are more concerned with undeserving minority groups and immigrants than hard-working, God-fearing, Christians. This rhetoric served to both anger and mobilize a significant portion of the working class against the Democratic Party and in support of the Republicans.  

What Pat Buchanan termed the “culture wars” has now become the routine, standard operating, Republican strategy of “stirring up the base”. Most recently it has involved increasingly outrageous charges against liberals who, it is claimed, are destroying the country from the inside. This strategy was ramped up further during the Obama administration, with the ever-present and not so subtle racist overtones, in the form of questioning Obama’s citizenship and his sympathies, and charging him with being a foreign agent and a communist dictator.  The Tea Party movement, cultivated and funded by the Koch brothers, was the most visible manifestation of this “ginned-up” base.  This described the first backlash, which has been fairly successful in fueling Republican electoral support among a segment of the white working class. 

But the ultimate electoral purpose was to advance the economic agenda of the corporate elite. As Frank argues: “Cultural anger is marshaled to achieve economic ends. And it is these economic achievements — not the forgettable skirmishes of the never-ending culture wars — that are the movement’s greatest monuments. The backlash is what has made possible the international free-market consensus of recent years, with all the privatization, deregulation, and de-unionization that are its components. Backlash ensures that Republicans will continue to be returned to office even when their free-market miracles fail and their libertarian schemes don’t deliver…”

And any chance that the culturally wooed working class would return to the Democratic Party is undermined by the fact that the Democrats, for their part, are equally complicit in joining the “free market consensus”.  This neoliberal economic agenda introduced under Reagan, privileging the needs of capital over labor through lower taxes, weaker unions, deregulation, and a far less generous welfare state, was deepened and normalized under Clinton (see NAFTA, welfare reform, repeal of Glass-Steagall), continued with a vengeance under Bush II, and largely left in place unabated by Obama despite its direct role in creating The Great Recession that he inherited.  The neoliberal consensus, driven by the bipartisan addiction to corporate campaign contributions, has left the working class with no party representing their interests.  Instead of a class-based appeal through alternative pro-labor economic policies, which would alienate their corporate backers, the Democratic Party has developed a codependent relationship with the Republicans using their own cultural and identity politics to attract the educated white-collar professional-managerial class who is likewise mobilized in opposition to the crude and intolerant cultural values advanced by the Republicans.   

Abandoning the working class, as Frank puts it, has been the “criminally stupid strategy that has dominated Democratic thinking” since the 1970’s.      

So as the 2016 primary season kicked off, you have the mass base of the Republican Party ginned-up and angry, continuing to suffer economically, unable to turn to the now-despised liberal Democrats, yet wanting to “Take Back America”.  But they do not see the Republican establishment responding proportionately to the purportedly grave threat to the American way of life posed by Obama and the Democratic Party. If everything they have been told by Republican politicians and Fox News is true, how come the Republican Party has not taken the drastic actions required to stop and halt the clear and present danger? Instead, the Republican establishment, despite the incendiary rhetoric, is perceived as too willing to accommodate and compromise with, rather than aggressively attack, the identified source of American decline. 

Thus, the second backlash is unleashed as the base turns, en masse, toward a Donald Trump, in hostile opposition to the Republican Party institution, with Trump promising, through appeals to cultural chauvinism and economic nationalism, to “Make America Great Again.”

Originally fueled by the first Great Backlash, we are witnessing more broadly the boomeranging blowback from years of cultivating dog whistle racism, misogyny, xenophobia, bellicose nationalism, anti-intellectualism, know nothingism, and generalized rage.  In short, the Republican Party has spawned a custom-made constituency for the neo-fascist demagoguery of Donald Trump.  

What Would Martin Luther King Jr. Think Today (annual post)

If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today I believe he would be deeply disturbed at the socio-economic condition and policy direction of the United States in both domestic and international affairs. 

More specifically, he would be appalled that our global response to 9/11 was war, invasion, and occupation; that our domestic response to 9/11 was a so-called Patriot Act curtailing civil liberties; that our current military strategy employs targeted killing using unmanned drones; that in spite of record rates of child and family poverty our “leaders” are unable to utter the p-word; that in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the great depression there is a greater concern with cutting deficits than creating jobs; that in spite of record income inequality, raising taxes on the rich is fiercely resisted while busting labor unions is embraced; that in response to the endless string of mass shootings many Americans have chosen to stock up on additional weapons;  that in response to a failing economy that systematically marginalizes racial minorities we have chosen prisonfare over welfare, the dragnet over the safety net, police violence over public safety; that the United States is the global arms merchant; and that rather than deepening democracy we have established a corporate plutocracy.

But Martin Luther King would not despair; he would organize. If alive today he would have supported the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements and would mobilize citizens in peaceful, non-violent action to agitate against existing conditions while building a vision for a more humane world.