A couple of items which provide some food for thought:
Firstly -
Barack Obama does represent change from the era of the Bush administration. He is the limited change that’s possible within the logic of the current system.
Image source here.
Secondly – Arianna Huffington:
Judging by where the media are focusing their attention, you’d think the Blago/Burris/Reid and Kennedy/Paterson/Cuomo soap operas are the biggest issues facing the nation — and that little thing about the potential collapse of the world’s largest economy is just a sideshow.
Why have the media shown such relatively little interest in the utter lack of transparency about the bailout?
I think the system is about to get one big shake up. I’ve had a feeling during the financial crisis that the world is about to turn to the Left – out of of sheer necessity. Government activism is no longer a matter of choice, and may not be for some time (a decade or more).
Who knows how Obama’s going to turn out? But remember that much of FDR’s rhetoric before he was elected in 1932 – and after – was pretty conservative. Yet he passed laws that allowed unions to flourish and that created a progressive governing coalition that you could argue lasted until 1994. And remember, too, that many said that Whitlam was a right-wing sellout.
So don’t be surprised if Obama suprises many of us on the Left. Though Obama has appointed people that are on paper centrists, the encouraging thing is that so many – like Hillary Clinton, his chief of staff – have legislative experiience. So there’s a good chance that Obama will actually get a lot done. And the zeitgeist counts for a lot in politics – and you don’t get a bigger zeitgeist than an economic collapse.
It’ll be interesting to see how the first 100 days of the Obama presidency impacts on our politics. If Rudd was shrewd he’d offer some big progressive initiatives of his own – so as not to suffer by comparison.
There’s not much information in that diagram. What does “left” and “right” mean? Why is it unidimensional? Where is the zero? What is the metric?
The 2nd point says something – so the media focusses on short-term sensationalist matters. That’s what the media often does. I suspect that there are quite a few people working on trying to make the economic recovery happen in the US regardless of whether there are media stories on it. There are lots of people working on important policies over the world that the media doesn’t discuss much. It doesn’t mean nothing’s happening on them.
Care to draw the Australian equivalent of that diagram? The changes over time in an animation would be VERY interesting, although difficult to develop objectively.
I don’t think that’s the point Huffington is making, Sacha. There’s a lot of evidence that the $700 billion TARP bailout has not just been maladministered, but its purpose subverted. It’s been easy enough to follow this via the specialist blogs – ie The Big Picture:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/01/bungling-the-bank-bailout/
But the MSM haven’t been talking about it – Huffington is suggesting that there’s actually an intriguing story there, and making a point about priorities.
what the hell is all that space doing to the right of the Republicans on that spectrum? this picture depicts both parties as way closer to the ‘centre’ than they actually are.
GB@1 – we live in hope, hoping that it won’t prove audacious!
I think the zany nonmetric incomprehensible diagram (news flash — much of the world’s politics is neither ‘left’ nor ‘right’ but merely barbarous) actually helps answer the second question. The present-day MSM is incapable of an intellectually valid or even numerate account of the alleged bailout — it’s easier to draw cartoonish “Mr. Wizard” lines in the air and smirk about Sarah Palin than do any actual work, and it’s not like anyone is even listening to them anymore anyway. You think Quadrant is irrelevant, try the NYT. The two of them can play Nell and Nagg, muttering to one another in the bins.
As for Obama the less said the better. Granted it’s going to be very hard to be a worse president than George Bush, but I think he’s prepared to give it an honest try.
It’s not often acknowledged in partisan circles of either stripe just how “leftist” George Bush’s presidency really was; and it really was. In practical terms, “compassionate conservatism” as we have seen translates as “please all, please none.”. At least when it wasn’t translated as blind stupidity and lying. Keep in mind that the government you folks wish to see given a greater activist role is the same government that botched the WMD intelligence, grossly mishandled the Iraq war, grossly mishandled Fed credit policy, let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac run amok, and deliberately refused to uphold its own laws on the Mexican border. The level of sheer incompetence is staggering, before we even begin to tally malevolence, and you want these guys to be in charge of even more stuff?
Bush, being philosophically shallow, confused “governing from the centre”, which is an actual position, with merely stationing pieces all over different parts of the board, which is simply zany. More politicians (and more people in general) should learn to play chess. My fear with Obama (well, one fear amongst about thirty thousand) is that we are going to get more “please all please none” except from the opposite direction. As the Amazing Criswell put it, “God help us, in the future.”
Au contraire, j_p_z – I think that “big government conservatism” and Bush’s incompetence have both been widely discussed. But I dispute the equation of a big and/or intrusive state with “leftism”, as I was saying a while back:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/01/05/economics-and-ideology-u-r-doin-it-wrong/
One of the other nails he drove into his own coffin, btw, was the Terri Schiavo fiasco. That really showed the limits of public willingness to accept that private decisions should be made by Washington.
Mark, I know you dispute that conceptual apparatus, but unfortunately in the context of American political culture as we have it, I can’t accept your argument uncritically. Our political process delivers whatever offal has been promised along certain delimited lines, and so you play the board as you find it.
I’m at a conceptual disadvantage in these discussions because for American purposes I generally prefer “liberal” to “leftist” but the word liberal means something different in Oz so I avoid it here. (Also, “liberal” and “leftist” mean subtly different things in America.)
I know Bush-style alleged “conservatism” has been much-discussed (if he was trying to conserve something, I couldn’t see what it was) but I said (or meant to say) his liberalism had not been fully acknowledged and owned as such. BDS played a huge part. For instance Obama made a great show of running against “failed” Bushism, yet his emerging policy profile smells of… Well let’s just say Bushmills markets a whiskey called Black Bush.
Well thanks for the graphic. I really wouldn’ta known that the US polity is so skewed to the far right.
While I welcome Obama, I can’t help wishing that our American friends had found some way to dig-up and revive someone like Thomas Jefferson for the job. Let’s face it, the US desperately needs a massive house-cleaning and a guy like Jefferson is just the ticket: Three-corned hat, wonderful turn of phrase and piss-poor attitude toward entrenched wealth and privilege.
The US economy has been living beyond its means since the Vietnam War. They’ve got a 21st Century Military with all the lights and whistles (even if it can’t beat a bunch of AK-toting Akbars) and a 19th Century Health care system. Their cities can’t afford essential services, while the public education system is a joke. Their financial system is on life-support, while they bleed-out lives and treasure into the sands of shitholes like Iraq and Afganistan. This is hardly surprising, I suppose, when you realise that Congress is stacked with legislators bought and paid for by defence contractors and oil giants.
The US might be up the creek, but the likes of Boeing, General Electric, Raytheon and Blackwater have been doing very well, thank you very much.
I can’t hellp feeling that a smooth-talking protestant Law Professor from Hawaii just ain’t gonna cut-it when it comes to rooting-out the crooks and liars who have been robbing the place blind for generations, while leading it from one disaster to the next. I feel He’ll end-up like a sort of piss-weak US version of Rudd (he of the hopeless bet-each-way Carbon Emission tragets): A mere tinkerer round the edges.
I’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but if he can bring-in something as modest as a decent National Health-Care scheme (for example) I’ll bare my bum in Pitt Street.
I notice that the graphic in question comes from MRzine, which appears to wish to resurrect a marxist view of politics, which at its current stage of development could only be described as “vulgar”.
The relationship between ideas and practice is dynamic. However, that relationship is transacted within an historical context.
I agree with Japerz’ observation that much of the world is simply barbaric, therefore throwing into question whether its politics fits anywhere on the diagramed continuum, as it has be conceived.
However, looking at the relationship between political ideas and practice in the non-barbaric world over an extended period (let’s say, since 1945)it would be true to say that politics has become more American. Therefore, rather than the US being seen as an outlier, it might better be conceived of as a pioneer.
However, Bush, whom I have tagged as an incompetent idiot long before many folks did, has done much damage to the US as a potential model in the world.
It remains to be seen how permanent that damage will be.
Kim, do you normally rely on Marxist-Leninist types to give the definitive categorisation about such things like supposed ‘World Political Spectrums’?
Anyway, dig the homepage of the Land Trust for Southeast Louisiana. A polo fundraiser! I wonder if Esteven is a political appointee–that would mean he was put in the job by either a Dixiecrat or Republican governor.
BTW, Obama is leading a post-New-Deal-coalition New Deal coalition.
Don’t need to be a bargain basement Chomsky to figure that out.
ZOMG! A commie graphic!
I think it’s pretty widely accepted in political analysis that the US Democratic Party is to the right of most European social democratic parties and indeed Labor parties of the Antipodean stripe. Any text on comparative politics will say that, so I don’t know that the graphic is particular to its Marxist author, or that the use of the graphic implies endorsement of his article.
j_p_z – but was he “governing from the centre”? He might have got a fair few Democrats to vote for his stuff in Congress, but doesn’t that just prove the point? The Rove strategy was incapable of piling up a substantial majority in the popular vote in 2004 – or any majority in 2000. I’m at a loss to understand – if you’re not just saying he ran a big deficit and interfered in stuff – in what sense he was “leftist”. As to “conservative” – ever since neoliberal economics came along, you’d be hard pressed to find one in a position of power.
Yes, I accept the peculiarities of U.S. exceptionalism, they’ve never had a real socialist movement but their neighbours Canada have, etc.
But it’s a schematic. Supposedly representing a, what, a mathematical formulation?
He’s measured the bloody thing out.
And it’s hardly unfair of me to point out the interesting fact he writes for the CPUSA’s magazine.
Hands up everyone here who knew the CPUSA still existed? (I had a vague notion it did, but the above article is confirmation.)
Nothing wrong with Marxist historians, Humphery MacQueen is one of my favourite Australian historians–but you have to admit it’s pretty weird that actual Communists still exist in America in any coherent form, and that someone like this Esteven guy is a fellow traveller of their’s.
When was the last time LP linked approvingly to the work of an a self-described Australian Communist? (Ex-Comms don’t count.)
At the time that the bailout was proposed, the MSM orthodoxy was that it was a good and necessary thing. Opposition, it was reported, was coming from a few ideological fringe dwellers on the left and the right, and from the bulk of public opinion but you know public opinion, whatever. For the MSM to report that the bailout has been a scam and a stuff-up, and that the banks have just taken the money and ran, is for the MSM to report it was wrong. The MSM never admits it is wrong, about anything.
Because of course the good folk at Last Superpower are happy to call themselves the heirs to the CPA(Marxist-Leninist), and I think Bob Gould’s mob are the remnants of the pro-Moscow elements of the Socialist Party and the CPA.
Or is that the Leninist Party Faction? ZOMG indeed.
I think I just answered my question from above.
So, not only do you attribute the things you don’t like about Bush’s agenda to U.S. liberal progressivism, but you also attribute the inability of this truth to be outed to the actions of U.S. liberal progressivism? Is that right?
That’s quite a stock response you’ve got there, j_p_z.
One question: Just when was it you jumped off the W. bandwagon? The Dubai ports affair, McCain-Kennedy, Schiavo, the Midterm Dem landslide? I’m thinking sometime in 2006. You weren’t an early adaptor, turning against him on the Patriot Act and the deficit, were you?
I’ve a feeling Katrina wasn’t a huge factor.
I’m not sure there are any writing! Bob Gould’s a member of the ALP, btw.
I’ve said some good things about the policy input of some of the ACTU CPA people in the mid 80s – but that was a long time ago… In a way I think it’s a pity that the exCPA never really got moving with a new party… but that’s a whole other debate. I’ve also had some associations with and linked to some Search Foundation stuff, but again I suppose they’re ex-Coms…
Take the graph as an none-too-careful allegory (and one that can’t handle outliers like Dennis Kucinich). For those unsatisfied who want to get their schematic on, there’s always Political Compass. Alas, most elected Democrats are to the right of the ALP (while rank-and-file are generally on the left).
One question that Esteven should have asked (but didn’t) – where do the voters stand along the line?
J_P_Z: Bush a leftist?
You could probably point to a few things that Bush did that were mildly centrist. For instance, he created a new drug benefit for the elderly (in a way that kept big pharmacutical companies happy) and he did spend a lot of money on AIDS in Africa. It should be pointed out that both had Republican constituencies supporting those initiatives (elderly and evangelical voters).
The Fact is, Bush governed from the Right, and the Right can’t now disown his presidency. They loved him up until about 2006. And as lots of people have pointed out, ideology is linked to competence – if a party doesn’t believe in government, chances are it won’t govern well (voters in NSW, take note). Since Sept. 11 we’ve seen in both our countries what the Right is like off the leash, and it’s as ugly as a Hieronymus Bosch painting.
And Paul Krugman has been very good on the Fannie and Freddie stuff – Republican attempts to spread the blame aside (it’s something of a Democratic bastion), it played only a minor role in the subprime mess.
I wonder how this view will look if Obama comes out with a more ambitious Greenhouse policy than Rudd.
There’s obviously some truth in it – as Mark notes the Democrats are prdominantly well to the right of social democratic parties in Europe and Latin America. But I think it also gets exaggerated a fair bit. If Obama was in Australia he’d be to the left of all of the Libs (that matter) and a good chunk of the ALP, and Edwards as the mainstream left candidate before the primaries, with Kucinich a good deal further left.
what the hell is all that space doing to the right of the Republicans on that spectrum? this picture depicts both parties as way closer to the ‘centre’ than they actually are.
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Interesting. There’s a whole plethora of Obama-bytes telling us that we’ll have to be patient to see his Great Change manifest. Could this be among them? Part of what a recent Blair-enthusiast (boo-hiss) called the problem of a centre-left party with a right-wing population. In the English speaking world there is a tradition of individualism that prevents, say, the high tax rates of Scandinavian countries.
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I’m not sure how we construct a world political spectrum and place America in it. After all the socialist v bourgeois/landowner dichotomy that established the Australian political spectrum in parliament anyway doesn’t apply to the States where the Democrats originally represented the aristo-landowners and the Republicans the industrial upstarts. The it was the ironically tagged GOP that constituted the party of change. And no socialist party has even acquired real influence partially because of the culture, partially because of the restricted political system.
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But on what basis do you measure right and left and apply it to America? Take the concerns of the peace movement. Everyone associated with this will prefer Pbama over McCain. But Bush II is an anomaly. American presidents who get into wars: Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy/Johnson – all democrat. The GOP liberated the slaves but the Dems wrote the Civil Rights Bill etc.
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Generally I think the Dems and the GOP express the social, political and commercial alliances of their base which shifts from time to time. Generally, despite fierce partisanship, there’s a consensus amongst politicians on policy which also shifts. Neoliberalism was the rage especially for Bill Clinton. Now we’re all Keynsians.
I don’t think too many Democrats would turn down our Medicare system given the chance.
The thing is, the US is a big country. Democrats in the Northeast and in big cities have strong leanings towards social democracy. Before we get too smug, let’s remember that the freedom rides and aboriginal rights were inspired by the American civil rights movement. Though we’re loath to admit it, the Australian Left has much to thank the American Left for.
P.S. I was sort of hoping John Edwards would win.
What GB said.
They would say that, wouldn’t they? In both America and Britain, opinion polls have shown large majorities for the core elements of social democracy – a robust welfare system, progressive taxes, etc. all through the neoliberal era. Part of the problem is that the voters who are targeted are fairly individualist in their leanings. Another part of the problem is voluntary voting, and the first past the post system (and a heap of other things in the American political system which work to demobilise citizens and protect the two party system). It might be more accurate to say a (majority) centre-right party and a (majority) centre-left population.
I’m also generally allergic to the mention of the “Anglosphere”. It’s almost always either a sign of over-generalisation or right wing inspired thinking.
I agree, too, Mark (lovefest).
Commentators have pointed out that while Americans tend to be against “big government” in the abstract, they love individual programs. I’d hazard a guess that most Australians aren’t even against government in the abstract.
We may be seeing a return to something like the New Deal coaltion (before the Democrats imploded over Vietnam).
It’s amazing what a turnaround there’s been in the commentary. Around Bush’s victory in 2004, commentators were saying the South provided Republicans with an unassailable base. Now they’re admonishing Republicans to be more than a party of white Southern men.
GB – The thing is, the US is a big country. Democrats in the Northeast and in big cities have strong leanings towards social democracy. Before we get too smug, let’s remember that the freedom rides and aboriginal rights were inspired by the American civil rights movement. Though we’re loath to admit it, the Australian Left has much to thank the American Left for.
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Well I’d distinguish the civil rights movement from socialism ideologically speaking. It is true that the pioneers in the push to emancipate black folks in the States were disproportionately of the socialist left, the Communists actually. And this is something that is glossed over or outright denied by many right-wingers. Still the idea that people are entitled to be treated as human beings regardless their ethnic heritage should have been a general principle of anyone adhering to the principles of classic liberalism. That such people were not exactly prominent when the fight was in the streets is shameful.
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But I’m not sure there really is a coherent Democratic Socialism in the mainstream of American thinking even tho’ the groups you mention would like Medicare. The fact that they don’t have anything like the modern public health systems of Europeans or us tells us something as does the way in which Clinton tried to manifest same.
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The ideas of those the Murdoch Press call ‘the elites’ notwithstanding, the US has never been witness to the kind of movements that created something like the ALP here.
Mark – They would say that, wouldn’t they?</i
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Who, the Blairites?
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In both America and Britain, opinion polls have shown large majorities for the core elements of social democracy – a robust welfare system, progressive taxes, etc. all through the neoliberal era.
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This is oft-quoted as evidence that ‘The People’ want socialism. Thing is they also don’t wanna fork over 50% of their paycheques. They want socialist services and liberal incomes. What can you do? I reckon there’s probably a shitload of polls out there that will show that people are socialists or liberals depending on whether the poll was conducted by socialists of liberals.
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I’m also generally allergic to the mention of the “Anglosphere”. It’s almost always either a sign of over-generalisation or right wing inspired thinking.
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Well we wouldn’t want any right-wing thinking would we? As Mani has told us: WE ARE AT WAR!
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Thing is,it’s a good term to describe the English speaking world. It might be an over-generalization if you’re, um over-generalizing. But considering the convergence of techniques, views, rhetoric etc between the political parties, technocratic elites and thinking tanks in the US, UK and Oz et al it’s not so far fetched.
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People say ‘the West’ is an over-generalization and they’re right. But reading some of Umberto Eco’s recent stuff does make one thing clear. He’s talking about Italian politics. But the rhetoric and the issues are almost identical.
Almost all of the conservative intelligentsia in this country have done some time apologising for Soviet or Maoist Communism – Windschuttle, McGuinness et al. If you take the attitude once a Com, always a Com, then they haven’t died, just joined ‘Quadrant’.
P.S. I was sort of hoping John Edwards would win.
He probably was the best candidate, but how could people prove how open minded they were by voting for him? Other wise they’d actually have to be more tolerant in practice, and that would be too hard.
Indeed – it tells us something about the inadequacy of the Democratic Party as a vehicle for delivering something people want. Healthcare was probably the second most important issue in 92 after the economy. It was the strength of feeling on this – manifested in a special Senate election in Pennsylvania (from memory) in 91 – that began to convince people that Bush I was beatable.
“Generally I think the Dems and the GOP express the social, political and commercial alliances of their base which shifts from time to time.”
Yup, follow the money. Someone really should map the changing nature of the American political landscape against the rise and fall of its economic centres of influence. Like Olgesby’s “The Yankee and Cowboy War” but with a bigger and less ideological scope.
As someone else observed – a detailed look at the policies pursued during the Republican ascendancy from 1994 to the present reveals no pattern except a fanatical determination to subsidize some industries (energy, defense, agrobusiness) and remove any and every obstacle to the profits of others (Wall Street, credit, insurance, pharma, telecommunications). And this not for philosophical reasons but because, given the structure of electoral financing, members of the legislative and executive branches are simply the employees of these industries.
And the Democrats are no less spotless. See the dot.com boom and the more corrupt unions for starters.
Fun and perhaps not completely OT fact. Warren Harding’s last words, delivered in Alaska, were: “How do the bull seals control their extensive harems?”
“Thing is they also don’t wanna fork over 50% of their paycheques.”
And yet the 50s, often seen as the glory days of the classical American dream, also saw the highest tax rates in the nation’s history. AFAICR the top rate was around 90%.
He also explicitly stated he didn’t want the votes of people who would decide their vote based on misogyny or anti-black racism.
I don’t know what his position on the pivotal troll demographic was.
Important point Nabs.
The 50s halcyon days lasted as long as the folks being slugged constituted a politically insignificant percentage of the electorate.
After 1970s inflation-driven “bracket creep” consigned the US middle classes to income tax hell, business interests and the American Right rode a populist revolt to power and to a major re-ordering of the US political economy, featuring much lower taxes, especially for corporations.
This was the moment the political economy of the US began to look very different from the political economy of other advanced countries.
Ironically, during the 1950s, when the US economy was truly exceptional, Eisenhower was conforming with the rest of the world by adopting keynesianism. Conversely, in the 1980s, when the US economy was simply the biggest among several modern economies, Reagan decoupled US political economy from the advanced-world consensus.
Vladimir – And yet the 50s, often seen as the glory days of the classical American dream, also saw the highest tax rates in the nation’s history. AFAICR the top rate was around 90%.
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Yeah. However it’s also worth remembering that such high tax rates led to ‘brain drains’ particularly in the UK. My father, for instance, split the UK, as despite his qualifications in civil engineering and geology, his income was little more than a foreman in a coal yard. Where was his incentive?
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The 1950s was the first decent decade in 30 years. I used to wonder about the old man’s stingy ways until I realized he was in his thirties before he saw anything like what we’d regard as a decent standard of living. People in the ‘50 were used to forking over large sums to the govt. Nowadays they’re much more reluctant. Given the disregard for fiscal restraint and efficiency that I’ve seen in the public sector I’m not surprised.
Conversely, in the 1980s, when the US economy was simply the biggest among several modern economies, Reagan decoupled US political economy from the advanced-world consensus.
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Ya reckon?
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I wonder what Hawkeating, Thatcher et al would have to say about that? Seems to me that Keynsianism lasted as long as it did because it was the prevailing economic wisdom. When it tanked (they all tank) they went with Friedman. And now…..
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He probably was the best candidate, but how could people prove how open minded they were by voting for him? Other wise they’d actually have to be more tolerant in practice, and that would be too hard.
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This idea that people voted for Obama because he’s black is ABSOLUTE CRAP! I’ve never seen any actual evidence that this is so outside of African-American communities.
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Obama may turn out to be history’s greatest charlatan. If he does so it’s because he’s also the best orator I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. The man is impressive in a way that no other politician I’ve seen has been ever.