Revolt of the Elites
posted by Frank Pasquale
Bernard Harcourt has analyzed new forms of radicalism adopted by the most and least privileged. Umair Haque at the Harvard Business Review has also identified dispositions shared by street looters and certain elites. As the chief political commentator at London’s Daily Telegraph has observed, “The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom.” Yet there are very different consequences for each group’s transgressions.
The more disruptive the disenfranchised become, the more they provoke harsh responses from authorities, thus worsening their already marginal position. By contrast, finance and government elites have positioned themselves to gain from whatever risks they shift onto society at large, via bailouts, emergency powers, and the revolving door. As Ross Douthat observed, “The economic crisis is producing consolidation rather than revolution, the entrenchment of authority rather than its diffusion, and the concentration of power in the hands of the same elite that presided over the disasters in the first place.”
Rather than being grateful for public subvention, Wall Street demands even lower tax rates and less monitoring. At least in the US, this “revolt of the elites” is more of a menace to social order than the type of mass protests against inequality and corruption now sweeping India, Israel, Spain, Chile, and many other countries. Whereas the poor are swiftly punished for disruptions, the worried wealthy‘s initiatives for not-so-creative destruction are self-reinforcing.
1) From risk shift to capital strike: Jacob Hacker’s book The Great Risk Shift described forty years of policies designed to shift risk away from corporations and government and onto individuals. For millions of workers, 401(k) plans replaced defined benefit pensions. In 1979, 82% of impoverished families got TANF benefits; thirty years later, only 27% do. During the Bush Administration, there was even a vogue for “health savings accounts” to replace defined health benefits. Current GOP presidential contenders are upping the ante, attacking Medicare and Social Security, and proposing the replacement of traditional unemployment insurance with “personal accounts.” These policies and proposals all shift the risk of sudden accidents, a frail old age, child poverty, and economic slumps onto the vulnerable themselves, rather than their employers, or the larger polity.
Austerity for the poor and middle classes is only one half of the risk shift. It helps pay for lavish backing of connected companies. The same groups that benefit most from tax cuts financed by a gutting of the safety net are also pushing for “certainty” in their business ventures. Just as capital is taxed preferentially, so too must its owners’ ventures receive subsidies. Lionized on the pages of Forbes or Fast Company for “taking risks,” Wall Street’s favorite executives often avoid them at all costs. Derivatives are a favorite way of engineering away uncertainty. They do business with “too big to fail” banks, secure in the knowledge that taxpayers are on the hook if anything goes awry. Big investors, too, are keen on loan guarantees and other state “givings.” And that is just the beginning of the “certainty” they’ve been demanding, and getting, as Yves Smith argues:
Businesses have had at least 25 to 30 years near complete certainty — certainty that they will pay lower and lower taxes, that they will face less and less regulation, that they can outsource to their hearts’ content (which when it does produce savings, comes at a loss of control, increased business system rigidity, and loss of critical know how). They have also been certain that unions will be weak to powerless, that states and municipalities will give them huge subsidies to relocate, that boards of directors will put top executives on the up escalator for more and more compensation because director pay benefits from this cozy collusion, that the financial markets will always look to short term earnings no matter how dodgy the accounting, that the accounting firms will provide plenty of cover, that the SEC will never investigate anything more serious than insider trading (Enron being the exception that proved the rule).
As Smith notes, now many of the same corporations “have played their cost-focused business paradigm out.” It turns out that the same workers pressed to the wall for concessions happen to be customers, too, and they can’t pay for goods and services like they used to. (As the Wall Street Journal puts it: the same “lucky duckies” who are too poor to pay taxes can’t even go on their “dollar store splurges” any more.) The obvious macroeconomic prescription is for the state to tax those who are doing well, in order to pay for relief, recovery, and reform. But that isn’t happening, either.
Rather, the power groups that dominate the US Congress, Presidency, and courts believe that only private investment can lead to more growth. The problem is that most of those capable of investing now have so much money that they don’t need to earn anything from it. It’s a capital strike against anything but a “sure thing.” Many corporations are also cutting and hoarding. That’s a brilliant strategy for CEO’s, who may need just a few years at the top to accumulate a massive fortune.
The role of money in an economy is like that of blood in a body—it has to circulate to keep the entity that contains it alive. When a tremendous amount pools in one place, other parts suffer. Redistribution of income is vital to the health of American capitalism. Its decline presages a different type of economy on the horizon.
2) Doom Loops: So why isn’t anyone doing anything about this? Some brave protesters in India and Israel provide a model response to their own countries’ inequalities. As Rana Dasgupta notes, “taxpaying professionals working 70-hour weeks now compete unhappily for urban space with massively wealthier and more powerful businessmen and bureaucrats whose sources of wealth are opaque and, on the face of it at least, too effortlessly acquired.” “Opaque” turns out to be a bit of a euphemism:
After independence in 1947 . . . [f]ortunes were accumulated to be spent on property – in India and elsewhere – or stored abroad. The globalisation of the Indian economy in the 1990s only expanded the opportunities for this corrupt . . . entrepreneurial class. “Big-ticket” deals multiplied, much as they did in Russia during the same period: businesses became involved in a scramble for the ownership of basic resources previously controlled by the state – land, mines, oil, mobile telephony spectrums etc – and this only the political class could endow.
The seamless integration of political elites with executives in finance, real estate, extractive industries, and communications is a feature of many so-called “free market” economies. But, as Harcourt notes, social disturbances in the US, Spain, and Britain have too often been unmoored from any positive political vision for change. And the most aggressive protests have themselves become the target of popular ire, rather than the conditions that sparked them.
Meanwhile, at the top of society, reckless behavior is rewarded time and again. Looting is an established business strategy, unpunished by authorities who appear far more interested in getting their own opportunity to loot rather than exposing malfeasance. Peter Boone and Simon Johnson describe how a “doomsday cycle” of privatized gains and socialized losses continues to this day:
[M]ajor private sector firms (banks and nonbank financial institutions) have a distorted incentive structure that encourages eventually costly risk-taking. Unfortunately, the measures taken in various US and European bailout rounds during 2008-2009 (and again in 2010 for the eurozone) have only worsened, and extended to far more entities, these underlying moral hazard incentive problems. . . .
This cycle of boom followed by bailouts and bust amounts to a form of implicit taxpayer subsidy that encourages individual institutions to become larger – and the system as a whole to swell. Our preparation to bail out their creditors means systemic institutions are able to raise finance cheaply in global markets. The implicit subsidy to creditors encourages greater debt, which makes the system ever more precarious.
Years after the financial crash, the chief perpetrators—be they foolish, negligent, or purposefully fraudulent—are wealthier than ever. And they continue to push for liquidationist measures that force lower living standards onto workers and citizens, rather than investment in a positive-sum future for all. In case of peak oil, today’s smart investment is to buy oil futures, rather than invest in a green energy startup. If effortless grabbing of a larger share of a shrinking pie is a bit more profitable than long-term investment to shift out the production possibilities frontier, Mr. Market endorses it. Each year, our brightest business school graduates vote with their feet: thousands opt for the financial alchemy behind a quick buck, while far fewer take part in the hard work of creating a sustainable future.
3) Expect More Stability: Several analysts have argued that the resulting flow of incomes away from the bottom 90% (whose income has gone up 1% in real terms since 1980) and toward the top 1% (which has enjoyed a nearly fourfold increase in income, with much higher gains for those in the top 0.1 and 0.01%) will generate social unrest in the US. I doubt this. First, as Dan Ariely has shown, not many people actually understand how unequal our society is. Second, our media is profoundly uninterested in discussing issues of equity or opportunity. Rather, it has bought, hook, line, and sinker, the Pete Peterson-sponsored message of endless austerity for the middle and lower classes. Third, US authorities are getting more creative in defusing protests, in actions that even a leading libertarian advocate of the First Amendment applauds for targeting “the bad people.”
Finally, and most importantly, technologies of surveillance have made dissent more costly. Sarah Jaffe has explained the consequences of the application of military-grade technology on the homefront:
As a burgeoning international protest movement takes shape, opposing austerity measures, decrying the wealth gap and rising inequality, and in some cases directly attacking the interests of oligarchs, we’re likely to see the surveillance state developed for tracking “terrorists” turned on citizen activists peacefully protesting the actions of their government. And as U.S. elections post-Citizens United will be more and more expensive, look for politicians of both parties to enforce these crackdowns. Despite growing anger at austerity in other countries, those policies have been embraced by both parties here in the States.
Citron & I have discussed several aspects of this phenomenon, including domestic intelligence collection about political action, and problematic collaborations between state and corporate “law enforcers.” Add into the mix the growing power of entities that secretly generate reputational data about individuals, and you have a variety of “chilling effects” on political activism that challenges inequality in the US. Meanwhile, the Bush-Obama war on whistleblowers has demonstrated the dangerous consequences of trying to publicize misuses of that technology. The end result is a mass “learned helplessness,” as the very idea of collective action becomes a bitter joke to a critical mass of the populace.
I only mean to predict increased stability within the US. Elsewhere, food scarcity (including that induced by our own wasteful energy use) is likely to wreak havoc. Complexity theorists in MIT’s Technology Review predict that, “If we don’t reverse the current trend in food prices, we’ve got until August 2013 before social unrest sweeps the planet.” Fortunately, the food stamps program in the US appears to have enough support from large agricultural interests to preserve it here.
History teaches that the great change agents in our society lost dozens of times before finally making a positive and lasting mark in law. As Harcourt notes, we could stay in the eye of this storm for a long time. Electoral politics, our traditional venue for gradual and constructive public investment, has been deeply corrupted by mass distraction and targeted influence. It will take years, and perhaps decades, of work to restore a party system that rewards politicians for addressing the real economic and environmental needs of their constituents. The best public intellectuals can do is follow the example of the minds who brought us to the present impasse: namely, to develop a “Mt. Pelerin Society” for those who actually believe there is such a thing as society.
Note: Given my title, I should acknowledge that Christopher Lasch identified a “Revolt of the Elites” 15 years ago.
Photo Credit: SEIU Int’l.
September 4, 2011 at 10:04 am
Posted in: Financial Institutions, First Amendment, Law and Inequality, Politics, Privacy, Privacy (Law Enforcement), Privacy (National Security)
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Responses (46)
Shag from Brookline - September 4, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Frank, This is an excellent post, which I have printed in order to study it in more detail. (Fortunately, the print version provides cites to sources.) While you cross-posted this at Balkinization, you did not provide for comments there. If you did, I’m confident there would be many.
Frank Pasquale - September 4, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Hi Shag,
Thanks for the kind words. My sources are usually better than me!
I’ve tended not to open comments at Balkinization because I’d like them all to be at one site, and I don’t have admin privileges there. But I should let people know that they are welcome to comment here.
Brian Tamanaha - September 4, 2011 at 5:53 pm
It’s hard not to read this without a sinking sense of hopelessness.
Bart DePalma - September 4, 2011 at 6:58 pm
Risk Shift
The person consuming a good is generally the most economically efficient actor to decide whether or how much to pay for the good. When you remove the consumer from the supply and demand equation and have a third party pay for the good, then demand and thus the cost of the good inflates for beyond a reasonable market value. This is why the economy has been trending toward defined contribution benefits where the employee assumes the benefits and risks of making the cost benefit decisions in pensions, healthcare and things like deciding among a suite of benefits.
This hardly heralds a new age of austerity for labor as the cost of labor has been increasing steadily even through the current never ending Great Recession.
Government regulations, subsidies and bailouts for favored businesses, privatizing the gain and socializing the risk, is most certainly not a free market in any normal meaning of that term. Rather, this is a new asymmetric socialism where the government uses government police and tax powers rather than de jure ownership to direct the economy and redistribute wealth. The Tea Party arose in large part in rebellion against this corrupt alliance of government and favored corporations.
Capital Strike
It is good to see that others are catching on that American business in general is engaged in a capital strike very similar to that during the New Deal and very commonly seen in socialist autocracies in the second and third world. Capital strikes occur when governments raise the cost or the risk of future cost of doing business and hiring labor beyond an acceptable return on investment. Capita strikes are hardly a strategy for CEOs to raise their salaries because CEOs are hired to grow companies and thus raise shareholder value, and are generally terminated when they fail to do so. CEOs only decline to reinvest in growth when investment is likely to lead to losses.
Doom Loops
The seamless integration of political elites with executives in finance, real estate, extractive industries, and communications is a feature of many so-called “free market” economies.
This seamless integration is a feature of the introduction of asymmetric socialism posing as capitalism and is the antithesis of a free market economy. The demands by the Tea Party and others for a return to limited government is an attempt to reverse this corrupt alliance of elites.
BTW, the government attempt to create, direct and subsidize an otherwise economically cost-ineffective “clean energy economy” is a perfect example of asymmetric socialism and is facilitated by the integration of government and private elites.
The story of the solar panel manufacturer Solyndra is a case in point. Obama ran on a campaign of government creating a “clean energy economy” that was subsidized by bundled campaign contributions of the billionaire owner of Solyndra. In return, the new Obama Administration provided a half billion loan guarantee to Solyndra without requiring so much as a business plan or collateral. Because private citizens were unwilling to pay double for solar power and when the US and EU governments approaching sovereign insolvency declined to buy enough panels to maintain the industry, Solyndra, Evergreen Solar and a soon to be growing list of other government subsidized solar companies are entering bankruptcy. The taxpayers, of course, are still on the hook for the hundreds of billions the Obama Administration borrowed to pay for its “investment.”
This is the perfect example of an asymmetric socialist “doom loop.”
Income Inequality
Americans have never bought into Euro-style class envy. American workers do not want to bring the rich down so much as they want to join them.
That being said, Americans do have an enormous problem with paying for other people’s failures whether that be big banks or subprime home mortgage borrowers. The Tea Party is driven in large part by anger at government for taking their money to rescue irresponsible people who borrowed money they could not or were unwilling to repay and the banks who made the loans.
Anjon - September 5, 2011 at 12:03 am
Fantastic post Frank! You hit so many great points
especially like this one:
“The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom.” Yet there are very different consequences for each group’s transgressions.
The only thing I would suggest is a mild label change of the word “revolt”, or add quotes to it, because to use it in this context is giving “revolting” a bad name! The elite have not been “revolting” so much as “oppressing” or “engaging in thuggery” or “looting” or any number of other labels we could come up with
Shag from Brookline - September 5, 2011 at 7:12 am
Anjon’s concern with the word “revolt” in the title of this post brings to mind Bill Bendix in the 1940s radio show “Life of Riley” when Bill would say “What a revolting development this is” when certain situations would arise. Instead of “Revolt of the Elites,” perhaps “The Power Elite” may have been more appropriate, the title of C. Wright Mills’ 1956 publication. I was already through college and law school by 1956, when I was in the midst of honoring my military service requirement post-Korea, pre-Vietnam. So I missed out on Mills’ book until in my semi-retirement from the practice of law in the early 2000s when I audited as a senior citizen a political science course at a local university that assigned Mills’ book. What an eye-opener. If only I had had the benefit of reading it before getting immersed in the practice of law. Alas, Mills died much too young. But the “power elite” have long been with us and at times – like the present – can be revolting in the Bill Bendix sense.
With respect to Commenter #4 (aka the “yodeler” at Balkinization) on the phrase “capital strike,” I suggest those interested and with time on their hands check out the archives at Balkinization for the 8/14/11 post “A 2012 Preview” by CO’s own Gerard N. Magliocca. (Warning: comments there run to 203 at present.) While Frank uses the phrase “capital strike” in his post with a link, I think our yodeler takes this out of context with his diatribe as noted in comments at the referenced Balkinization post of Gerard. Our yodeler clutches at straws and creates a straw horse that he now rides under the banner of the Tea Party, having previously – 1/20/01-1/20/09 – been entrenched in the Bush/Cheney saddle that our yodeler since changing banners now calls the GOP sewer. There isn’t enough tea in China to wash off the slime of those 8 years.
Shag from Brookline - September 5, 2011 at 8:24 am
Consider stock market fluctuations since the debt ceiling brouhaha followed by the S & P downgrade. Did performances of publlcly-traded corporations bring them about? Are markets really, really efficient? Skeptics, such as I, would benefit from reading – and understanding – Robert J. Schiller’s Economic View column in the Sunday NYTimes (9/4/11) titled “The Beauty Contest That’s Shaking Wall St.” describing a test that Keynes suggested some years ago. Here’s the penultimate [my favorite word] paragraph:
“This process creates uncertainty not only for the stock market, but also for the overall economy. The only thing to fear is fear itself, [FDR] said of the Great Depression, and he was right. We are constantly trying to reassess the fear of others, and others’ fear that others are also afraid.”
Schiller then closes:
“This may sound like a crazy game, but if others are playing it, we must, too. The outlook for the economy depends on how this convoluted beauty contest plays out.”
Who will the GOP beauty contest judge of the economy be with the withdrawal of Donald Trump of Miss America fame? This is a really hairy problem that requires waxing eloquence.
Shag from Brookline - September 5, 2011 at 9:02 am
I don’t want to add to Brian’s feeling of hopelessness, but take a look at Mike Lofgren’s “Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult” at Truthout (9/3/11), available at:
http://www.truth-out.org/print/5901
Warning, this print version runs 11 pages, but is well worth a read. It starts off with a couple of lines from the 1944 movie “Double Indemnity” to establish in perspective the two major political parties on the question of blame. Lofgren doesn’t use the word elites but much of what he says does not differ that much from Frank’s post.
By the way, footnote [2] of Lofgren’s article commenting on Mitch McConnell’s attitude towards Obama applies to our yodeler.
Frank Pasquale - September 5, 2011 at 9:07 am
I’ll address the substance of some comments later this week. I do like the phrase “asymmetric socialism.”
Bart DePalma - September 5, 2011 at 10:32 am
Frank:
I apologize for the somewhat disjointed nature of my original response. Your article caught my eye and I whipped out something before going rock climbing. Please allow me to properly explain my theory of asymmetric socialism.
Although defining socialism is a bit like herding cats, classical socialism basically boils down to (1) government ownership of the means of production to (2) direct the economy and (3) redistribute wealth. [There is a variation known as economic democracy where the government owns and the workers direct the means of production, but assuming a government which owns the means will not in the end direct them is unrealistic. See Tito's Yugoslavia.]
Socialism came into disrepute as a legitimate political economy after the Cold War and the economic collapse of socialist enterprises across the world at the end of the last century. My proposition is that socialism and socialists did not go extinct, but rather evolved into a new asymmetric form.
After WWII, western and especially US militaries became so proficient that it became almost suicidal to engage them in conventional warfare. Thus, other peoples developed what is called asymmetric warfare where combatants misrepresented themselves as civilians and used civilian structures like the legal system and the internet to attack their enemies.
Similarly, asymmetric socialism is where socialists misrepresent themselves as progressives or simple reformers of capitalism and use traditional government police and tax powers rather than de jure ownership of business to accomplish the same socialist goals of directing the economy and redistributing wealth.
Ownership of the means of production is the simplest means of accomplishing the socialist goals of directing the economy and redistributing wealth and not an end in itself. Socialists abandoned ownership because it makes the socialist government responsible for the failure of the businesses it owns, while the same government can blame the nominal owners of a business when government police and tax powers cause the same failure.
I have just this week finished the final edited draft of a book tracing the history of this evolution from French and American theorists in the 60s to what I contend is its first formed implementation in the United States during the Obama Administration.
Shag from Brookline - September 5, 2011 at 11:04 am
We are witness to our yodeler’s “asymmetric rock climbing on economics” which will surely result in a “No-Balls” prize in “FREAKING-ECONOMICS.” To those at this Blog not familiar with our yodeler, he announced his book project on or about 1/20/09 as Obama was settling into the White House. See the closing line of my comment 8 and read the referenced footnote [2].
Bart DePalma - September 5, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Shag:
Would you like a copy of my book when I print off the first batch in the next few weeks so you can actually speak intelligently on the topics raised therein? The several hundred endnoted sources should keep you busy for awhile.
BTW, I started working in the project in the summer of 2009 when the Obama “clean energy economy” initiatives were enacted and the House published the first Obamacare bill. At that time, it was clear that something new was afoot.
Bart DePalma - September 5, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Frank:
In a very interesting development over in the EU, the German voters just punished the “conservative” party in regional elections for wasting their money bailing out insolvent PIIGS welfare states and thus the EU banks which hold the PIIGS debt. The Euro stock markets are in a tail spin.
Shag from Brookline - September 5, 2011 at 2:45 pm
I must decline our yodeler’s offer. Based upon his rantings about his work of “Friction” and his otherwise repeatedly expressed hatred and vileness of all things Obama, it would be cruel and unusual punishment to read it. Our yodeler has failed to establish credibility with his foundational admiration of all things Bush/Cheney over their 8 years. Perhaps I might deign to read a review in The Economist.
Bart DePalma - September 5, 2011 at 7:14 pm
Shag:
In that case, you will of course decline to comment upon that which you have not bothered to read.
A.J. Sutter - September 5, 2011 at 11:46 pm
Given the military metaphor within “asymmetric socialism” (which BTW incorporates the handy rhetorical strategy of allowing one to accuse one’s adversary of whatever one wants, notwithstanding their denial or visible evidence), it’s refreshing to hear from the right that class warfare is out in the open.
Following the pattern of “asymmetric X” denoting something that (putatively) really is X though it tries to appear otherwise, I suppose some might claim we also have an asymmetric foreigner and an asymmetric Muslim in the White House. On this pattern, “asymmetric authoritarianism” and “asymmetric plutocracy” might describe some trends in US society today, though here the usage is in another sense pleonastic.
Shag from Brookline - September 6, 2011 at 6:43 am
Do I have to remind our yodeler that I do read his comments and will continue to comment on them? For those who have paid attention to our yodeler over the years (especially during the Bush/Cheney 8 years), it is obvious he does not understand much of what he claims to have read. Some might think our yodeler is so crass and tasteless as to using his comments on blogs other than his own to promote his upchucking work of “Friction.” Our yodeler is a vile hater of everything Obama, which he will continue to demonstrate with his comments here and at other blogs.
Bart DePalma - September 6, 2011 at 8:09 am
AJ:
Asymmetry is now a pejorative?
Shag from Brookline - September 6, 2011 at 9:02 am
Our yodeler asks AJ:
“Asymmetry is now a pejorative?”
With our yodeler’s comments #s 4 and 10, he answers his own question at least with respect to socialism (as well as warfare when it is against America’s more conventional form of warfare). But our yodeler obviously favors Tea Party asymmetry.
Bart DePalma - September 6, 2011 at 9:41 am
Shag:
Asymmetry is simply using an unexpected means to accomplish your goals. Thinking outside the box in this manner is hardly limited to those engaged in wrongdoing.
Our military has been using various forms of asymmetric warfare since the Revolution.
Apple has been using asymmetric means to deliver computing for years from introducing the mouse to using fingers taps and swipes on the iPad.
Thus, Asymmetry is not a pejorative, but rather a necessary means of evolution. My proposition is that socialism is evolving.
Shag from Brookline - September 6, 2011 at 10:49 am
How profound our yodeler is with this:
“My proposition is that socialism is evolving.”
But in his comment # 10 our yodeler does not like the way it is evolving as he claims it is under the Obama Administration in the form of what our yodeler calls “asymmetric socialism” as he traces:
“… the history of this evolution from French and American theorists in the 60s to what I contend is its first formed implementation in the United States during the Obama Administration.”
Is our yodeler with his comment # 20 now suggesting that this supposed evolution is not a pejorative, rather that it is ” … a necessary means of evolution.”? Of course, socialism is not a science in the sense of Darwin’s theory of evolution, which raises a question regarding our yodeler’s use of the the word “necessary.”
I think our yodeler is lost in an “asymmetric maze.”
A.J. Sutter - September 6, 2011 at 11:50 am
Bart: In your comment #10 you twice mentioned misrepresentation as constitutive of the quality of being asymmetrical: first regarding warfare, and again regarding socialism. You also suggest that the reason for this misrepresentation is so that a “socialist government” can avoid blame that should properly be attributed to it. In your comment #4, you refer to asymmetric socialism in the context of a “corrupt alliance of government and favored corporations.”
Regardless of whether your characterization of asymmetric warfare was correct in the first place (which it is likely not), plain readings of your comments establish the pejorative connotation of the term in your usage. A Google search fails to turn up any other examples of calling Apple’s input devices (or products generally) “asymmetric” in the sense you suggest. So your attempted disavowal of your previous comments by this contrived example seems disingenuous, if not downright “asymmetric.”
Bart DePalma - September 6, 2011 at 12:51 pm
AJ:
Misrepresentation is not a necessary element of asymmetry in general, but is a feature of asymmetric socialism and asymmetric warfare, which is why I used that analogy here and in my book rather than say to Apple’s evolution in computing.
Socialism in general does not per se require misrepresentation. This is an evolution to operate in a less than welcoming U.S. political environment. Asymmetric socialism misrepresents itself as progressivism, liberalism or pragmatic reforms of capitalism because the classical form is discredited in the American market place of political economies. I suspect this is also why the left in America rejects any discussion of socialism that would be a normal part of political discourse in the EU.
If you review democratic socialist and community organizing writings in the 60s and 70s, misrepresenting socialist policy as “non reform reforms” or “reforms of capitalism” and socialist candidates as liberals or progressives (the Harrington and DSA fusion and realignment strategies) is openly discussed.
Despite some heroic efforts to conceal his past, Mr. Obama was very much part of the socialist community at university and then in Chicago community organizing. As President, Obama has pragmatically applied various elements of evolving American socialist thought to very successfully achieve most of his goals.
Contrary to shag’s knee jerk assumption that I “hate” Mr. Obama, I consider him to be the second most successful president from the left after FDR. The left’s whiny attacks on Obama as some sort of a moderate sellout are quite silly. If I could find a GOP candidate who would roll back government to the same extent that Obama expanded its power and reach, I would be ecstatic.
A.J. Sutter - September 6, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Your definitions of what it takes to be “left” and, perhaps “socialist” as well, seem quite selective to fit your argument. If expansion of government were sufficient to qualify as “left”, there are several GOP presidents who would deserve that epithet. Moreover, to those of us who lived through the 1960s and 1970s, the idea that there is any current Democratic leader who qualifies as “left” is both laughable and heartbreaking for its irony. In Europe there are plenty of people who despair, too, that wealthy economist politicians like DSK qualify as “socialists”. And plenty of socialists who think Obama is anything but.
Shag from Brookline - September 7, 2011 at 4:00 am
Our yodeler demonstrates his hatred of Obama with this:
“Contrary to shag’s knee jerk assumption that I ‘hate’ Mr. Obama, I consider him to be the second most successful president from the left after FDR.”
as he surely hates FDR (and the New Deal) even more than Obama.
As to our yodeler’s:
“Misrepresentation is not a necessary element of asymmetry in general, … ”
misrepresentation is his norm, perhaps built in his DNA.
Shag from Brookline - September 7, 2011 at 6:53 am
Our yodeler may be using the Sen. Joseph McCarthy political playbook on the “Communist Menace” in the early 1950s with his “Asymmetric Socialism Menace” that is the “flounderation” of his work of “Friction” on Pres. Obama soon, it is claimed, to be published. I was in law school back in the days of the Army-McCarthy hearings in the early 1950s, perhaps before our yodeler was born. I vividly recall the TV scenes with attorney Roy Cohn whispering in Sen. McCarthy’s ear (his left ear!). In my mind I photoshop this picture with our yodeler substituted for Roy Cohn. I am not aware if our yodeler has selected as yet a champion for promoting his “Asymmetric Socialism Menace” from amongst the current declared and undeclared 2012 GOP candidates for President to whisper to, but we are more fortunate today than back in the early 1950s when we did not know what Cohn was whispering as our yodeler “whispers” for all to hear his rants. [WARNING: THIS COMMENT MAY CREATE AN INDELIBLE IMAGE FOR SOME PICTURING OUR YODELER AS ROY COHN.]
Shag from Brookline - September 7, 2011 at 8:57 am
OOPS! Cohn was whispering in Sen. McCarthy’s right ear – but the wrong things.
Bart DePalma - September 7, 2011 at 9:02 am
A.J. Sutter:
Your definitions of what it takes to be “left” and, perhaps “socialist” as well, seem quite selective to fit your argument. If expansion of government were sufficient to qualify as “left”, there are several GOP presidents who would deserve that epithet.
1) Why do you consider left to be an epithet? It is simply a fact of life that the modern left of progressivism and socialism believes in large, interventionist and redistributionist government. Do you disagree?
2) You are very much correct that the term left applies to many policies of several GOP presidents of my lifetime. See the term RINO, which is meant as an epithet. Our current political economy is progressive, which is what has triggered the conservative voter rebellions in 80 (Reagan), 92 (Perot), 94 &10 (GOP congress) and very arguably 06 and 08 in rejecting a profligate GOP in favor of Blue Dog Dems and a certain Dem presidential candidate promising tax cuts, and net spending cut to slash the deficit by half. After the Dem governance of 09-10, it is easy to forget that they ran on a far more conservative platform.
Moreover, to those of us who lived through the 1960s and 1970s, the idea that there is any current Democratic leader who qualifies as “left” is both laughable and heartbreaking for its irony.
In what way? The 09-10 government was far more to the left than any government from JFK to Carter.
And plenty of socialists who think Obama is anything but.
The angst is a combination of whining and spin for public consumption. If you read the socialist publications were they talk amongst themselves, socialists support most of Obama’s initiatives.
Bart DePalma - September 7, 2011 at 9:08 am
Shag:
One can fundamentally disagree with a person’s policies without hating them.
I suspect that folks on the left of a certain advanced age like yourself might actually consider McCarthy prior to hysterically rejecting that socialism exists in the United States as it does in most of the rest of the Western world. Do you really think that this historical artifact triggers the same response from younger folks?
Shag from Brookline - September 7, 2011 at 3:03 pm
But of course our “immature” yodeler “hysterically” discovers “asymmetric socialism” – however he may define that phrase from time to time – “tracing the history of this evolution from French and American theorists in the 60s to what I contend is its first formed implementation in the United States during the Obama Administration.” [Comment # 10] No doubt our yodeler is searching for a sound bite to promote his work of “Friction” but this one really bites the big one.
As for the “historical artifact” of Sen. McCarthy and whispering Roy Cohn, there’s a lot more “Schine” to it that may intrigue “younger folks.” Back then the GOP rode McCarthy’s coattails until McCarthy was finally realized, even by Republicans, to be a drunk. Now perhaps our yodeler’s “younger folks” might not respond to a reference to Father Coughlin, a stalker of FDR and the New Deal. But I got a feeling that many of our yodeler’s “younger folks” are more mature than he and might recall George Clooney’s 2005 flick “Good Night, and Good Luck.”
A.J. Sutter - September 8, 2011 at 12:32 pm
OK, I’m intrigued: what are some examples of “socialist publications [where] they talk amongst themselves”? Mostly I read Le Monde diplomatique and Alternatives Économiques, which don’t make a habit of endorsing Obama’s programs.
My earlier point about the historical relativity of “left” had nothing to do with Congress of that era, though maybe a couple of elected officials, like Gene McCarthy, and Tom Hayden in his early days, would qualify by then-contemporary terms. Many others, like my former Congressman Al Lowenstein, were simply “liberals,” which at the time put them far to the right of “left”.
A.J. Sutter - September 8, 2011 at 1:03 pm
I wasn’t explicit enough in my comment of a few minutes ago: “left” in the ’60s and ’70s included revolutionary, bring-down-the-government left, not just the “work inside the system” left like Gene McCarthy. The SDS, Trotskyites and many others had sign-up tables on college campuses including my own, during the height of the Vietnam War; no one was shocked, no one subpoenaed their library or book purchase records. Being a Marxist was a good way to pick up girls. All kinds of hair-raising leftist stuff was delivered by the US Mail to my home (mostly unsolicited); rather than my mother getting a knock at the door from the police or the FBI, she found some of the material interesting. The expectation of many who were dancing in the streets on the night Nixon resigned was that some revolutionary change was actually not too distant. Naive, sure, but this sort of left was able to operate with an impunity impossible under the Obama Administration.
Bart DePalma - September 9, 2011 at 1:01 pm
AJ:
OK, I’m intrigued: what are some examples of “socialist publications [where] they talk amongst themselves”?
I probably missed a couple, but I sourced The Nation, Social Policy, Socialist Worker, New Left Review, New Ground (Democratic Socialists of America), New Party News (DSA fusion party to which Obama belonged), and the Progressive Populist.
Naive, sure, but this sort of left was able to operate with an impunity impossible under the Obama Administration.
You are naive to be sure. These folks were Obama’s political mentors and advisors, and populate his Administration, especially in the various shadow task forces about which very little is reported. For example, I’ll bet you did not know that there was a Auto Team working largely in secret behind the public Auto Task Force which did nearly all the planning to nationalize and then set the industrial policy for Chrysler and GM. Generally, the only media reporting on this was the local Detroit and automotive press.
Shag from Brookline - September 9, 2011 at 3:11 pm
And now our yodeler infuses ” … various shadow task forces” with his claim of “asymmetric socialism.” Next, our yodeler will be yodeling “Me and My Shadow.” Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of our yodeler? By now, we all know.
Bart DePalma - September 9, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Shag:
The press had no idea of the existence of the shadow Auto Team behind the public Auto Task Force for several months and then mistakenly thought that these people were merely assistants to the members of the ATF. I was not clear on this until a TARP IG report footnote described the two entities.
It is pretty bad when your government running an industry operates in the shadows.
Shag from Brookline - September 9, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Yes, let’s get rid of the auto industry and alleged DUI offenders at the same time so that the latter’s attorney can become collection lawyers making an “honest” living. No, it is the ilk of our yodeler in the shadows of the GOP fronting the Tea Party.
A.J. Sutter - September 9, 2011 at 11:13 pm
I certainly didn’t know there was an Auto Team or other shadow task force working for the government as part of the “revolutionary, bring-down-the-government left” that was the referent of my phrase in the same comment, “this sort of left.”
Shag from Brookline - September 10, 2011 at 7:05 am
The TARP IG report referenced by our yodeler runs over 250 pages. Perhaps he could identify the report’s footnote that he relies upon – unless his goal is to make a mountain out of a molehill footnote, as part of his hypothesis of “asymmetric socialism” Obama style.
By the way, Wikipedia has a post on “Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry” formed early in 2009 that names names but not a secret or shadow “Auto Team,” which our yodeler may be confusing with the once popular TV “A-Team” that included Mr. T.
Bart DePalma - September 10, 2011 at 9:41 am
Shag/AJ:
If you want further details, you will have to read the book. We have already stretched Frank’s hospitality enough going down this side road.
Shag from Brookline - September 10, 2011 at 11:39 am
Rather than read our yodeler’s work of “Friction,” I may read the IG’s report in the search for the elusive footnote in a haystack. If found, why it may become as famous as “footnote 4,” to the credit of our yodeler. Regarding Frank’s hospitality, I am awaiting follow up to his comment # 9 (and for some reason I’m humming ” My Darling Clementine”).
Bart DePalma - September 10, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Shag:
The TARP AG has issued several reports concerning the various abuses of that slush fund. I believe the report to which I cited involved the Auto Team compelling Chrysler and GM to abuse the bankruptcy system to put several hundred dealerships out of business to avoid state franchise protections and to meet “the President’s mandate of shared sacrifice.” Once again, you will have to read the book.
Shag from Brookline - September 10, 2011 at 9:15 pm
The TARP IG’s report dated July 19, 2010, titled “Factors Affecting The Decisions of General Motors And Chrysler To Reduce Their Dealership Networks” runs 45 pages and is available in PDF. Many references are made to the role of the “Treasury Auto Team” in the report. But was the Treasury Auto Team acting in secret or as a shadow work force? Or was the Treasury Auto Team appointed in compliance with applicable law? Mr. Rattner was an original co-leader of the Treasury Auto Team that reported to the Treasurer. Mr. Rattner’s role was well publicized in the national media. Our yodeler’s concern with stretching ” … Frank’s hospitality enough going down this side road” fails to reveal that he, our yodeler, led us down this side road as he struggled with his hypothesis of “asymmetrical socialism.” Quite a bit has happened following the IG’s report regarding payback by GM and Chrysler. The IG recognized in his report that the success of the Auto Task Force Program was too early to tell on July 19, 2010. So our yodeler has taken us down a side road which turns out to be a dead end with regard to “asymmetric socialism.” Alas, our yodeler is once again lost in his maze in his search to find something, anything, that will stick.
Bart DePalma - September 11, 2011 at 11:44 am
Shag:
To start, the Obama Administration nationalization of GM and Chrysler was classical and not asymmetric socialism, very much along the lines of the British Labour government’s nationalization of British Leyland in the mid 70s. The US and Canadian governments took ownership stakes and far more importantly appointed the board members of GM and Chrysler even when they did not have nominal majority ownership.
The Auto Team set company policy behind the scenes while Obama repeatedly lied to the American people by denying that his administration was running GM or Chrysler.
Obama’s industrial policy for the automakers was not a spur of the moment reaction to an emergency. Rather, Obama implemented policies which he had been discussing over the years and he chose Ron Bloom to be his shadow car czar because Bloom specialized in often hostile union takeovers of troubled companies – a favored strategy of economic democracy socialists.
The Obama imposition of the “Toyota model” of city car dealerships on companies based largely upon suburban and rural sales and the resulting unemployment and distribution havoc is a perfect example of command and control socialism has always been a failure as a political economy.
Far, far more happened largely behind the scenes. The dealership mess was just one small section of two chapters reporting on the nationalization of two of the Big Three.
Shag from Brookline - September 11, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Our yodeler claims:
“Rather, Obama implemented policies which he had been discussing over the years … ”
When did these discussions start? When Obama was a community organizer? After law school? After he was elected to state office in IL? After he was elected to the U.S. Senate? Details, please, details.
Note that our yodeler does not reference Rattner who was the primary leader of the Treasury Auto Team originally. I wonder why?
As to the type of socialism, it was our yodeler who first mentioned on this thread “asymmetric socialism,” and when he was challenged and did several stutter steps, he threw in the secretive and shadowy Auto Team without distinguishing the program from “asymmetric socialism,” and now he does, changing hypotheses/theories in mid-thread to “classical socialism.” What next, “capitalist socialism”?
And our yodeler throws in “nationalism,” “Obama repeatedly lied to the American people.” But what he fails to do is to discuss the current situation of the U.S. auto industry as compared to the establishment of the Auto Task Force action early in Obama’s term.
So our yodeler is once again changing direction, perhaps this time to lead us to a cul-de-sac.
Bart DePalma - September 11, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Shag from Brookline – September 11, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Note that our yodeler does not reference Rattner who was the primary leader of the Treasury Auto Team originally. I wonder why?
Bloom ran the show, Rattner was largely a figurehead.
Details, please, details.
Looks like you are hooked. Buy the book in a couple months.
Shag from Brookline - September 12, 2011 at 7:31 am
Hooked? Our yodeler tries to bait, but bread balls don’t work (except on really hungry carp – i.e., right wingers). It’s time for our yodeler to cut bait – or better yet, stop fishing in his maze. My request for details is for something to back up our yodeler’s conclusions/accusations here, in this thread, not in his work of “Friction” documenting his hatred of and vileness towards President Obama.
Apparently since DUI has been drying up in CO with more residents switching to tea, our yodeler has needed to augment his income by becoming a writer. (Word has it that he has put a “GONE FISHING” sign on his law office door.) It seems he is his own book deal by means of self-publication (aka literary masturbation). This suggests that even the extreme right wing publishing houses (that publish quite a bit of GOP crap) see not even a right wing market for our yodeler’s screed, not a scintilla. So desperate is our yodeler that he is using this Blog to market his work of “Friction.” Even though I shall not buy the book or read it, perhaps I can furnish a blurb to help sales (for a worthy cause):
“OUTHOUSE JOURNALISM THAT WILL SERVE THE PURPOSE.”
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