It’s a wonder how some authors get press for every single book they write although they do not present anything new at all. (Who am I kidding? That’s exactly how you get some press. If you detect a bit of resentment from me, you are correct. Where’s my Colbert Report appearance Rowman & Littlefield?) Thomas Frank, famed author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? , is one of those people. Lucky bastard. As one of the many liberal cultural commentators, he gets a lot of play for one reason–he doesn’t critique the notion of American democracy itself, but instead raises it up as that which has been sullied and destroyed, and now must be recovered from the “bad guys.”
Who can really blame him? Much of American leftism is beguiled but such a poor understanding of politics. It is a line of argument fully endorsed by Noam Chomsky, whose political books recently have been nothing but conspiracy-oriented rants. Now I enjoy conspiracies as much as the next cat, but how do we let this pass as left politics? For Chomsky and others like him, the current state of the US is a product of a vast neo-conservative effort to reinstitute an oligarchy. I agree with him that the US resembles an oligarchy more than anything else today, but it is not a singular group that has some how succeeded in bamboozling the rest.
Thankfully, Frank’s new book seems not as conspiratorial, But nevertheless it takes a page from Chomsky’s book, which is a mode of argumentation than more so anything substantive. Here’s what I mean. Frank’s new book Wrecking Crew is described by Salon as
…the first book to effectively tie the ruin and corruption of conservative governance to the conservative “movement building” of the 1970s, and, before that, the business crusade against good government going back at least to the 1890s.
I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ve been keeping track of the interviews he’s done for his book tour. And from what I can gather, Frank’s book is about bringing together two things that cut to the core of the current status of American political life–conservatism and industry. Frank’s argument is that
the conservative ascendancy did not merely change the composition of government; they sold government off to business, piece by piece — and, of course, it was sabotage by design.
In other words, government during the reign of American conservatism beginning with Nixon has subsidized governing to business. So instead of government governing, we have business governing. There is of course no better example of this in this country is healthcare, which is relegated to the regime of HMOs and private hospitals.
This argument, as good as it sounds now to liberals in America, is not that great of a plan. Frank’s point is really just to expand government in much the same way as it did during the New Deal. What you then have is a massive welfare State like the European nations. Some would argue that this is better than what we have now. I would be one of those people. But in reality, this alternative is not so much an alternative but a reversion to a status quo ante–way ante. What scares me about this is that the American liberal argument for big government becomes a hidden Statism. Are we going to replace one monopoly (business) for another (political oligarchy)? Anyone ever hear of Stalinism?
5 responses so far ↓
david // August 13, 2008 at 4:22 pm |
sounds to me like Frank’s ish is just talking about a little thing called neoliberalism, or as Ruth Wilson Gilmore would put it, the “anti-state state.”
i’m real interested in that new deal nostalgia and how it erases white supremacy and its attendant harms; it also hearkens back to this whole “back to family” bs which is really just a nostalgia about when (white) Men. it’s all about projecting some kind of white-middle class patriarchal nostalgia.
the other thing about the new deal nostalgia is the role of the warfare state and military-keyneseyianist economies–in some ways the foundation for the extreme neoliberalism of the 80s-today except. . . ?
SH // August 13, 2008 at 4:30 pm |
I would actually disagree with you on the periodization of neo-liberalism. I think the 80s weren’t really extreme yet–you needed a Democrat to do that (Slick Willy). The early 80s still consisted of undoing the Great Society legislation put forth by the LBJ administration. This happened of course through cultural politics of Reagan–the Drug Wars, etc. I think neo-liberalism as a well-oiled “anti-state state” comes at 1989-91, when we can have the opening up of the various parts of the Eastern bloc that the West could not reach prior to that. The Georgia/Russia business is a deferred reckoning of this “radical” neo-liberalism that emerged in the 90s.
david // August 13, 2008 at 4:35 pm |
yeah i feel you on that, BC really did his damn thing. . . and was for sure enabled by all of 1989.
That Dude // August 14, 2008 at 11:35 am |
As a frustrated America lefitst, let me quote your boy (not YOURBOI) Slick Willy, “I feel your pain.” The left hasnt come up with anything new since The Great Society, which was really just an expansion is many ways of the New Deal. Since Nixon it seems like the left is constantly playing defense riddled with nostalgic romanticized vision of the 60s.
That battle is over and our ideological forerunners took a big L. Instead of griping over how to get back there, we need to, and I think this is your point with Franks and Chomsky, move forward and confront the problems of the American system, as fleshed out by the last 30 years of bad government, from new and, although I hate this word, progressive angles.
Now, this rant is as useless as a Chomsky conspiracy theory, because I have no answers. But rants are rants for a reason.
SH // August 14, 2008 at 12:11 pm |
I think the New Deal era wasn’t exactly milk and cookies in its plan but was supported by a little something called WWII. The post-war profiteering by the Americans really allowed for the US to ride an economic wave that would only be stunted culturally by the 1960s and economically by the oil-crisis of the 1970s.
On “progress”: I think “progress” is one of the more mystifying words used by the American left (mostly liberals). If it were up to me, I’d get rid of it. Here’s why. Progress entails some kind of upward mobility narrative that neoliberalism uses to its own advantage not anyone else’s. Hence, we have in America the most vital ideological Kool-Aid called “the American Dream.” And the funny thing is, the immigrants (trust me, I’m one of them) love it! So do the liberals! “Things are better than they used to be” basically amounts to “don’t ask for too much too quickly.” In other words, don’t upend the American democracy, which of course is Frank’s line of argument. All that does is reify “democracy,” as if to say we have a perfect one now in the US. If we did have some kind of economic democracy, there would be redistribution right now (in the form of a large inheritance tax like Europe). Since there isn’t, it’s a self-contradictory logic. But once you ask to cash the check with Progress written on it, it’s bounced. That’s been the case for most of American history. The progress promised is never handed over. But if we mean “progressive” as in moving away from current left intellectual frameworks, I’m all for it. But I would hope it’s actually ANTI-progress.