At Quillette Joel Kotkin pens a lament for the sort of social democracy championed by among others the late Michael Harrington (disclosue: Michael Harrington was a graduate of my high school, in the same class as Dr. Thomas Dooley):
In a world that seems to be divided between neoliberal orthodoxy and identitarian dogmas, it is possible to miss the waning presence of traditional social democracy. Born of the radical Left in Marx’s own time, social democrats worked, sometimes with remarkable success, to improve the living standards of working people by accommodating the virtues of capitalism. Today, that kind of social democracy—learned at home from my immigrant grandparents and from the late Michael Harrington, one time head of the American Socialist Party—is all but dead. This tradition was, in retrospect, perhaps too optimistic about the efficacy of government. Nevertheless, it sincerely sought to improve popular conditions and respected the wisdom of ordinary people.
In its place, we now find a kind of progressivism that focuses on gender, sexual preference, race, and climate change. Abandoned by traditional Left parties, some voters have drifted into nativist—and sometimes openly racist—opposition while more have simply become alienated from major institutions and pessimistic about the future.
concluding:
Arguably the single greatest distinction between social democracy and the new progressivism lies in the word agency. The original social democrats sought “to enhance their economic power†by mobilizing grassroots support. In contrast, today’s “Left†tends to favor rule by experts—a reprise of Wilsonian progressivism. Like its contemporary analogue, this was more a product of the university and the boardroom than the union hall. And like the original model, today’s progressives increasingly embrace Wilson’s preference for censorship and the political repression of uncooperative political tendencies.
There’s really no way to reconcile this progressivism with social progress. Climate change policies, in particular, wipe out any gradual way to increase wealth for the middle or working classes, although enforced strictures like “de-carbonization†create bounteous opportunities for highly profitable renewable energy speculation among financial and tech giants. The obsessive emphasis on race and culture reflects the concerns of the faculty lounge and the media newsroom.
In a slow-growth world, with few opportunities for upward mobility, perhaps the solution lies in a Universal Basic Income, a modern variant of what Marx described as a “proletarian alms bag.†Universal income is widely favored, particularly in Silicon Valley, where many dismiss the idea of upward mobility. The consensus there increasingly embraces a 21st century equivalent of the “bread and circuses†given to the masses in Imperial Rome. But Labour activist Embery notes such efforts “disempower workers,†discourage organizing, and turn them into essentially wards of the state, rather than independent agents.
None of this is far-fetched, as we can see by the growing acceptance of stimulus transfer payments in both the United States and Europe. Yet, over time, as families become more dependent on government transfers, they may choose to confiscate the wealth of the uber-rich. Great inequality, Adam Smith suggested, naturally leads the poor to “invade†the “possessions of the rich. Some on the Left already propose using the riches of the oligarchy to fund a “fully automated luxury communism,†a kind of technologically enabled collectivist paradise. Given the history of utopian musings like these over the past century, they should be feared. But compared to growing inequality and dismal prospects for most, such a radical approach could still become surprisingly attractive.
For every former Republican like, say, Peggy Noonan who mourns the disappearance of her Republican Party to be replaced by the Party of Trump, there are probably two Democrats who are just as saddened to find what they thought of as their Democratic Party of the Little Guy being replaced by today’s nearly thoroughly gentrified technocratic party of Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. Like the Cheshire Cat it is vanishing little by little until all that is left is the smile.
It’s not hard to understand why. Their business models could be destroyed with the stroke of a pen—they’re completely dependent for their billions on control of political power and the Democratic Party was a distressed property both after the defeat of Al Gore by George W. Bush and then after Hillary Clinton’s defeat by Donald Trump. Now it’s government of the people by the political donors for the political donors.
Democracy, and for that matter socialism, too, require a culturally and ethnically homogeneous population, a nation. To the degree that a people differ from a homogeneous nation, they lose democracy and socialism. During WW II, the US was 85% White with a manageable Black underclass and a scattering of Jews and Latinos (mostly native). White power was so great that the minorities could be, and were, ignored. Politics occurred between White people and concerned White problems and issues. Whites were not aware of themselves as a nation, or at least they did not obsess about it. Catholics were a problem.* That system had been in place since the Founding, and it more or less worked, the Civil War not withstanding.
As the White population drifts downward to biggest minority status, it will become self-aware as a people, and they will adopt identitarian politics. Jews, Blacks, and Latinos are already there; Whites will just join them.
The new America will be a top-down authoritarian state with zero-sum politics. Ukraine is probably the best modern example, but every multicultural, multiethnic state in history has been a dictatorship of some sort, some worse than others.
There is no way to avoid this future. It is built into the human genome.
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* Catholics were/are still a problem until recently. In 1965, in Boston, my Presbyterian mother-in-law refused to attend my wedding to her daughter, because I had been raised Catholic. Ironically I was pretty much apostate by then. My wife’s father did attend, and the ceremony was held in the magnificent Presbyterian Church in Roxbury, of which he was an elder. My best man was a secular Jew. My wife and mother-in-law did not speak to each other for about two decades, although my father-in-law kept in touch.
Some readers may remember the brouhaha of Kennedy’s candidacy, and the extremes he had to go to to appease fundamentalist Protestants. Some never acquiesced to his Presidency.
The Catholic problem eventually went away, because the majority of Americans stopped believing.
And yet somehow we remained a reasonably democratic country for the first two hundred years of our existence despite being very ethnically diverse right from the beginning. I attribute that to two factors
The second is no longer possible. The original charter purpose of the public school system was to ensure the first remained the case despite large influxes of immigrants but that charter was abandoned about 50 years ago.
Black folk have been the challenge to that for 150 years. IMO there was some chance of that being resolved 50 years ago but black nationalism and the decision to import large numbers of Mexican workers rendered that impossible.
” Now it’s government of the people by the political donors for the political donors.”
How is that different than Republicans?
” but black nationalism and the decision to import large numbers of Mexican workers rendered that impossible.”
Just as much or more was the Southern strategy by Nixon and everyone after him.
Steve
Exactly. How is that different from Republicans? They have different donors. That’s about it.
Sometimes they even have the same donors. The FIRE sector has historically donated more to the GOP but they always donate some to both sides and if it is pretty clear one party is going to win they contribute more to that side. They are willing and able to buy influence from either party and both parties are willing to sell it.
Steve