cast away illusions, part two

8/14/2019 Cast Away Illusions, Part Two

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INSURGENT ANTHROPOLOGIES:

CAST AWAY ILLUSIONS, PART TWO

By Christopher Carrico

http://ccarrico.wordpress.com 1. NEO-LIBS AND NEO-CONS IN PRACTICE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Official_portrait_of_Barack_Obama.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:5.3.10SarahPalinByDavidShankbone.jpg

One contradiction that both neo-liberals and neo-conservatives face is the difficulty of

how to protect the free pursuit of liberty, (especially though markets, private property,

and the accumulation of wealth), from the democratic demands of the majority for social

justice, intervention in the market, and the equitable distribution of wealth.

While neo-libs and neo-cons are both, in theory, against intervention into the economy

by the state, both have come to be for the very aggressive use of the state when state

intervention is useful for the protection of property, wealth, and entrenched power.

Paraphrasing David Harvey, I noted in this blog last month that:
http://ccarrico.wordpress.com/http://ccarrico.wordpress.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Official_portrait_of_Barack_Obama.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Official_portrait_of_Barack_Obama.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:5.3.10SarahPalinByDavidShankbone.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:5.3.10SarahPalinByDavidShankbone.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:5.3.10SarahPalinByDavidShankbone.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Official_portrait_of_Barack_Obama.jpghttp://ccarrico.wordpress.com/


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As in the case of some of the classical theories of liberal democracy, neo-

liberal theorists are concerned that the free functioning of the liberal

economy be protected from the sometimes irrational influences of the

democratic masses, whose demands for equality, a social safety net,

collective ownership, or national protection could irrationally interfere with

the smooth functioning of otherwise ideal liberal capitalist economies.

Following the argument put forth by Grard Dumnil and Dominique Lvy in their book

Captial Resurgen t(2004), David Harvey argues that neo-liberalism is most coherent

not when viewed as an economic model or as a political theory, but rather when seen

as a project for the restoration or creation of capitalist class power. Hence its

contradictory relationship with the state: it claims to be against state intervention, while

being heavily in support of state actions that are intended to buttress the power of

capitalist elites.

Neo-conservatives also put forth rhetoric against big government intervention into theeconomy, while at the same time supporting state interventions intended to protect and

promote the economic interests of ruling elites. Neo-conservatism, while differing in

emphasis in some ways, is perfectly in keeping with the neo-liberal goal of

strengthening capitalist class power.

The reign of the free market, the unchecked power of capital, and economic and military

imperialism, all create a great deal of social disruption, anomie, and chaos. The

capitalist freedoms that both neo-liberals and neo-conservatives advocate are forces

that are constantly threatening to tear apart the very fabric of society. (Harvey 2005:

81-86)

The neo-conservative answer to the chaos and anomie that permeates the world that

the liberals created, is not to question liberalism sfundamental economic premises.

Rather, neo-conservatism seeks to address the social disorder caused by capitalism by

advocating a strong state with coercive powers to control the chaos of individual

interests. (Harvey: 82) In this sense, neo-conservative views of the role and function

of the state are similar to those put forth by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan (1651).

When neo-cons talk about their desire to check the excesses of liberalismthey reveal

one of the ways in which neo-conservatism in practice is as deeply contradictory asneo-liberalism in practice. By no means do neo-conservatives want to control and

regulate capitalist interests (the real source of social disruption). Instead, neo-cons

hope to make democratic majorities more governable through the use of a coercive

state, and through an appeal to morality, religion, nationalism, and tradition.

Again, quoting David Harvey at length is worthwhile here:


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the moral values that have now become central to the neo -

conservatives can best be understood as products of the particular

coalition that was built in the 1970s, between elite class and business

interests intent on restoring their class power, on the one hand, and an

electoral base among the moral majority of the disaffectedwhite working

class on the other. The moral values centered on cultural nationalism,

moral righteousness, Christianity (of a certain evangelical sort), family

values, and right-to-life issues, and on the antagonism to the new social

movements such as feminism, gay rights, affirmative action, and

environmentalism. (84)

These forces have gathered more strength today than ever in the US, best

exemplified by the emergence of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party.

Furthermore, similar sets of conditions have led to similar outcomes in many

parts of the world. Conservative calls for a return to tradition (and even outright

calls for authoritarian governance) have been seen as answers to the chaos that

has been caused by liberal capitalism. To the Tea Party we can add the

resurgence of neo-fascism in Europe, the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Partyand

other Hindu right-wing parties in India, and the rise of authoritarian states (and

violent and reactionary non-state actors) in much of the Islamic world.

The evocation of national, religious, and racial solidarities in a world that was

(many told us) supposed to be becoming more globalized, cosmopolitan and

tolerant, has been one serious sign of broad based right wing politics of fear

mongering. Rather than looking at structural economic problems: declining

standard of living for the majority of Americans, increasing unemployment or

peripheral employment, the overwhelming and unprecedented burden of debt

taken on in every sector of the economy, from households, to corporations, to

local, state and federal governments, etc., neo-conservatives find scapegoats in

non-white immigrants (legal and illegal) from all over the world, in Islamic

terrorists, and in competition for markets and resources with developing countries

whose labor costs are far lower than labor costs in the U.S.

2. Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle.

Those progressives who are today disappointed in Barack Obama need to examine

their worldviews, see which of their hopes were realistic in 2008, and prepare for

struggle in what are most likely going to be a bitter two years ahead for American

politics. As I noted in Part One of this blog, neo-liberal policy was a bi-partisan project.

It was initiated in earnest in the U.S. under the administration of Ronald Reagan.


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However, the neo-liberal agenda was wholehearted supported by conservative and

New Democrats. The quintessential New Democrat, of course, was President Bill

Clintoncompleter of the Reagan revolution.

There was very little that Barack Obama told us in the primaries and the presidential

campaigns that seemed to break from the mold of the Clintonian New Democrat.Indeed, one the things that was so striking about the knockdown, drag out fight between

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries was that their views

on policy were virtually identical to one another.

In speaking to African Americans, Barack Obama used his candidacy as evidence that

Americans now lived in a post-racial world, and asserted a version of the culture of

poverty thesis which stated that African Americans would do better in white society if

they behaved in a more responsible manner.

Obama promised from the outset that he would escalate the war in Afghanistan, whichis now sinking into an ever deep quagmire, deeply affecting Pakistan (not only in the

border areas). His recent visit to India was motivated in part, by his wanting to court

India as an ally in the fight against Islamic extremism in the region, thus exacerbating

already tense relations between these two communal religious groups in South Asia.

His visit involved enormous arms deals, and not doubt increased tensions between

Indian and Pakistan, both countries who possess nuclear weapons.

Obamas choice of Joe Biden for the Vice-Presidency was particularly telling. A long

term leader on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a well know Liberal Hawk

who has supported every major imperial adventure that the U.S. has embarked on in hiscareer (in the name of spreading freedom and democracy around the world with the

barrel of a gun.)

Obama immediately prioritized the bailing out of banks during the crises that began just

before his election. He has been slow at beginning to help Americans who homes are

being foreclosed, at beginning jobs programs that do not reduce unemployment rates,

but rather merely slow down their escalation. His massive overhaul of Americas

Healthcare system turned out to be one that might be more adequately described as

minor tinkering

At the environmental summits in Copenhagen and in Cancun, the Obama administration

did nothing but show up, and protect the interests of Americas big capitalist polluters.

In the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration has either

been unwilling or unable to hold BP to full accountability for the disaster.


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The handling of the disaster in Haiti, with a US military presence, and thousands of

NGOs on the ground has made a major disaster into an even bigger disaster than it

needed to be.

Civil liberties of all kinds continue to be stripped from American citizens, and ever more

so, from immigrants, legal and illegal. Massive deportations and costly and ineffectiveborder patrols are expanded year after year.

And then there was the matter of the extension of the Bush era tax cuts, and

appointment this week of a former banking industry executive as Obamas new chief of

staff.

Itsnot like there hasnt been any progress, though. Dont Ask Dont Tell has been

repealed, which means that openly gay people can kill innocent Iraqis and Afghanis just

like straight people are allowed to.

The question is, however, whatever led us to believe that once we elected Barack

Obama as president, he would do anything other than largely pursue the politics of the

same? Both major parties in the U.S. states are beholden to big capital in seemingly

inescapable ways. No candidate would ever make it past the early primaries if in fact

she or he did have a truly progressive political agenda.

If we think historically about when real democratic change has happened in the United

States, it has generally not been a gift given to the American people by the government

from the top down. Rather, the expansion of rights and liberties has usually been the

result of the long and hard fought struggle of organizers and activists against systems of

entrenched power.

It took Abraham Lincoln a long time to realize that, in spite of his reluctance, the freeing

of African slaves was going to be necessary for the North to win the Civil War. Most of

the framework for recognition of trade unions, minimum wage laws, workplace safety

laws, and New Deal social programs were initiated under the presidency of Franklin

Roosevelt. But these programs were not solely a result of the beneficence of an

enlightened president. They were fought for and won through generations of militant

trade union struggle, and Roosevelt probably would not have found many of these

measures necessary if there had not been a massive, and militant, organized working

class demanding political change.

Likewise, the Civil Right legislation written during the Kennedy Administration, and

signed into law under the Johnson administration, would have never been proposed

simply because of the beneficence of the ruling elites in the Kennedy Adminstration.

The real work that accomplished some of the goals of the Civil Rights movement had to


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do with grassroots organizing, not with the empathy of Kennedy or Johnson with the

struggles of the African American people.

Because we did not struggle to push the Obama towards serious political reform duringthe first two years of his administration, the struggle for the next two years is going to be

even more difficult. We have a Congress and Senate, the majority of whom can only be

described as enemies of humanity. And we have a president who caved in on many of

the marginal differences he had with the Republican Party, even when there was a

Democratic super-majority in the Congress.

Maybe the best we can hope for is that the experience of the Obama presidency will

lead people to cast away the illusion that some charismatic figure will emerge from the

Republican or Democratic Parties and lead us to the Promised Land. Perhaps it will

become increasingly possible (as people were beginning to see leading up theDemocratic Primaries in 1968), that it is not leaders who change the world, but ordinary

people who find the courage to demand that something change, before its too late.

cast away illusions, part two

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