the poverty of a political culture

Unless one were to change "Americans", little can be changed about US politics. Ill informed, lacking an education in political theory and history, suspicious, covetous, and displaying symptoms of the narcissism of small differences towards any group that appears to be making social and/or economic progress (first Catholics, then Irish, then Jews, then Blacks, then Women, then Gays, then Mexicans, etc.), Americans are a sorry lot. Claiming practical knowledge bred of healthy exposure to the "real world", they are as gullible as the most benighted country bumpkin: ready to believe the worst and fear the best, they sell short when they should hold out for long. In the defense of "Americanness", they act "un-American". In the defense of liberty, they act illiberally. Worse yet, the American electorate has given rise to a political class that is scandalously inept. The carnival barker, the circus impresario, the sales huckster, and the soap box demagogue are still models of political comportment and representation, which is why money and policy are interchangeable entities in American politics. Unfortunately, the difficulty of the task the 99% demonstrators have set for themselves is daunting: it is not simply to change a banking system or create a chimerical people's capitalism but rather to change an entire form of subjectivity.

99%

It is an empirical question whether the marriage partners of capitalism (in its totally mythical form as "self-regulating market") and representative democracy (in its totally mythical form as "popular sovereignty") are fully compatible, and practically functional, in conditions of emergency such as an economic crisis (particularly a crisis that is global). In the present situation, the finance banking system, which is not subject to the controls of any particular "government," contributed to a crisis; whether "the People" (Tea Party or #OWS) can do anything about it using the instruments available to the American government is an open question, particularly when the ideal of a self-regulating international market holds sway in public opinion and in practice.

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The problem is that since the 1930s and 40s (and Taft-Hartley), there's no political language for talking about class directly in American politics. After all, Americans are all middle class by definition, up to a yearly income of $250K. There's no accounting for class differences between the owner of a small business, a well paid freelancer, a plumber, and person who works two jobs: they are all middle class. Hence, class distinctions are recognized as distinctions in culture (e.g. educational attainment, prestige of educational institution, patterns of consumption including books, religion or lack thereof, neighborhood, region, linguistic fluency, prestige of occupation, home-ownership, etc.).

#TeaParty v. #OWS: a tale of two movements

The Tea Party is a new iteration of a long-standing political tradition, classically defined as the "paranoid style" by historian Richard Hofstadter: a pot of conspiracy thinking leavened with a healthy dollop of nativism and covered with a poujadist lid. Far from being an independent political movement, the Tea Party is a creature of the Republican Party and has always sought its nirvana on the happy hunting grounds of right-wing conservative fears: fear of government, fear of a black President, fear of gays, fear of Mexicans, fear of Muslims. Establishment Republicans love the energy but loathe the substance of the Tea Party, just as level headed Republicans sought distance from the mania of Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

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The #OWS crowd is the typical mix of left-wing and progressive causes one finds at any large demo. The symbolism of the mass gathering is, however, losing its efficacy as a carrier of political meaning. It is telling that only confrontations with baton-wielding and mace-spraying police (as opposed to Blackberry-wielding and derivatives-spraying financiers) have brought it wider attention: alas, the police don't run "Wall Street" or crash the Lehmann Brothers of the world. At some point, enlightened elements of the #OWS will figure out that engagement with the Democrats is the only means to bring about practical reforms. Clever Democratic politicians would be wise to leverage this left-wing angst. But short of an actual revolution, no new form of people's capitalism is likely to emerge and the youth of the nation must grow accustomed to conditions of scarcity that have beset most people at most times in history. The golden years of the housing and credit bubbles are gone forever.

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Life in a declining empire: get acclimated

seeking 'good government' republicans

What is striking to me about politics from the conservative side of things (conservative understood quite broadly) is that no claims have been made that conservatives would be more "competent" governors. This might be because the rhetorical emphasis on the shibboleth of "small government" gets in the way of an interest in "good government." Or I suppose "good government" is construed narrowly as "good for business" or "creating jobs in the private sector." Political Republicans (i.e. the governing group of Republicans, not the Rogueistas) appear to see no positive role for government other than playing the role of matador, getting out of the way of the charging bull of liberty and entrepreneurial initiative. However, if the conservative side were to turn from the mantra of reducing government to that of a "government that works" (i.e., one in which the trains run on time, not simply "balancing the budget"), then candidates like Romney or even Bloomberg would make sense. But since government by definition means incompetence for the Right, these possible candidates don't seem viable at the moment. (Another possibility, Petraeus, has wisely demurred). Thus a motley crue of Palin, Huckabee, Pawlenty, and Jindal must suffice for a Republican Party geared more towards hair band aesthetics than substantive politics.

limited government, American style

What is striking to me about contemporary economic doomsday prognostication is how much it echoes the hoary old Marxist theory of crisis, of the inevitable collapse brought on by the inexorable falling rate of profit. What both these crisis theories evidence is, however, a falling rate of political intelligence.

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It is difficult to get outside the cognitive constraints of the ideological image of liberals versus conservatives, and to think "institutionally." What might it mean to think institutionally about capitalism and about the State (government). Regarding the former, it is always oriented to the short term: today's profits matter more than some future event that might never happen. The next quarterly report is the extent of the attention span of the hypothetical self-interested entrepreneur. What might this mean in practice? It may mean, for example, that environmental degradation matters only if it cuts into profitability (who cares if there’s one less spotted owl as long as I make a buck selling timber). This is short-term thinking par excellence and it is perfectly rational if one assumes that people are driven by self-interest and that it would be irrational to pursue strategies that undermine self-interest. What does this mean for the predicted, impending bankruptcy of the contemporary crisis theory? It means that as long as current profits can be maintained at a reasonable level, the long-term possible bankruptcy doesn't matter.

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What both contemporary and old-fashioned orthodox Marxist crisis theory conveniently ignores is the truly inconvenient fact that "crisis management" forestalls such cataclysmic crises, delays them, pushes them off to some future date. Crisis management is the art of softening the blows of short-term thinking, of the supply and demand cycle, and the social and political dislocation that both entail. Crisis management is neither a liberal nor conservative phenomena, it is a function of institutions, in particular State and quasi-State institutions (see the coordinated actions of Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner in the aftermath of the demise of Lehmann Brothers). The art of crisis management assumes the irrationality of individuals acting on short-term interest in immediate profitability. Crisis management is also a high-wire act: it must find the right balance between the necessary degree of management and the necessary degree of short-term thinking. A crisis of crisis management (Claus Offe) arises when crisis management encroaches too much on the short-term rationality of the market (which is irrational); in other words, it must manage the consequences of market irrationality without undermining this irrationality entirely. (N.B. I'm using the term"irrational" in a non-pejorative, and purely descriptive, sense: short-term thinking and behavior that ignores long-term consequences is irrational in a restricted sense and from a certain point of view).

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To be sure, there is dim recognition of the implications of crisis management among those politicians today, who admonish -- in Matherian tones -- that "we are burdening our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren with debt." Of course we are! As rational economic actors, our only interest is in the now, not the 50 or 70 or 100 years from now. Our contemporary crisis managers push off the cataclysmic crisis onto future generations, who will have their own crisis managers to push off the crisis onto even more future generations, or until the last ton of fossilized coal has been burnt. Such crisis management is short-term thinking that attenuates the consequences of short-term thinking. Is this wrong or immoral? It is neither, if we accept short-term, self-interested behavior on the part of individuals (persons or firms) as normal and inevitable, which is precisely what these Chicken Little politicians assume.

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What about long-term thinking and long-term survival: who does that and how is it accomplished? Typically State institutions (i.e. government) have the task of maintaining the integrity of the socio-economic system over the longue duree. What are those institutions? The internal and external security institutions; and the social security institutions. Both of these long-term oriented institution forms must be maintained, i.e. financed; and hence we have taxation, and it is only a pipe dream to wish taxation away. Moreover, there is no choice to be made by those who seek “limited government” to get rid of one (social security institutions). Both internal/external security and social security are always already, necessarily interdependent. And while it would be nice to return to the seventeenth-century system of mutual aid, it is simply unrealistic (and hence irrational) to assume -- as a form of “tax relief” and “deficit reduction” -- that this is a practical alternative to State institutions. From the standpoint of the short-term, self-interest of the rational actor, time spent tending to ailing Aunt Jenny is time and money taken away from earning more money, starting a business, or pursuing a professional degree. And while this hypothetical rational actor might want to tend to Aunt Jenny, she realizes that she lacks the skill set to cope with her Aunt’s problems and is quite happy to be unburdened of this task by a government agency (Medicare/Medicaid), and by health care and social work professionals who are trained to take care of such ailing Aunts. Two pennies on the dollar of taxation that goes to this purpose is well worth it to this profit-seeking person, who can use the money saved on buying medicine for the aunt to purchase a larger HD television; and the byproduct of this consumption (or, rather, the “pursuit of happiness”) is that another rational actor remains employed at Best Buy.

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Quite contrary to their intentions, the limited government chorus may well create a new economic crisis if their goal of slashing the long-term social security institutions were achieved (for which new institutions of crisis management will evolve and the whole thing starts over once again). Truly limited government would likely be worse than no government at all, because such a limited government would lose political legitimacy, and would be unable to attenuate political and social disorder that comes from the loss of legitimacy.