Comments on: Thomas Frank, again?

By: SH

SH — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:11:15 +0000

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.

By: That Dude

That Dude — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:35:50 +0000

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.

By: david

david — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:35:38 +0000

yeah i feel you on that, BC really did his damn thing. . . and was for sure enabled by all of 1989.

By: SH

SH — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:30:53 +0000

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.

By: david

david — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:22:15 +0000

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. . . ?