I was listening to a recent This American Life podcast at the gym the other day that included a bunch of interviews by Studs Terkel with people who’d lived through the Great Depression. A few things stood out: several people interviewed displayed a great empathy that had come from their own experiences with tremendous poverty, with having a father or husband who had simply not been able to get a job; there was a real pride, in fact, in what poor people had been able to accomplish together to survive the depression; and there was talk of revolution.
Why should President Roosevelt have so many pairs of bejeweled gold and silver cufflinks, one woman remembers wondering at the time, when so many people couldn’t put food on the table for their families? Why were people starving in this rich land? To those of us accustomed to these neoliberal times, these questions sound laughable, naïve. But they’re good questions, and the widespread poverty of the Great Depression prompted people to rethink the system that had created such suffering.
Right now, we’re at one of those times of opportunity and danger that make people want to believe silly things about the Chinese character for “crisis.” Our next president ran on promises of health-care reform, action on climate change, and help for the economic crisis. His economic team as it’s shaping up looks quite competent, especially compared to the jokers we’ve got now. And of course, we’re in the middle of a financial crisis of truly extraordinary proportions that looks to be making a fairly usual kind of economic downturn into a severe recession.
Several issues are at play. As Matt Yglesias points out, the New Deal had some aspects that were meant to get people working right away — call these the stimulus aspects — that wouldn’t have been appropriate in a booming economy. It also had other aspects, like Social Security, that weren’t implemented right away and didn’t have an immediate stimulus effect, but were good, progressive policies that got passed because the political climate favored big reforms that made life better for poor and middle-class people.
So in the debate over what we should do now, Yglesias says, we can separate things like a big stimulus bill, which is appropriate Keynsianism in a downturn, from things like health care reform, which would be appropriate any time but might be best to pass now because the political climate favors moderate social justice reforms rather than the extreme right-wing agenda the Republicans have been pushing.
What messes up this rosy picture is a remark I think Chomsky made (maybe someone else) to the effect that the progressive reforms of the New Deal happened only because the elites genuinely feared a revolution. I’d offer the hardly original observation that capital rarely gives up its prerogatives willingly. As evidence, look at the various farcical financial bailouts we’ve seen so far in the crisis, with the latest being the laughable sweetheart deal for Citigroup. No Citi management changes, no guarantees for the taxpayers who are footing the bill, no pain for capital, unknown billions of dollars of pain for taxpayers. The elites who created this mess are not relinquishing power, as obvious as it may seem to you or me that they really ought to do so in all fairness.
I suspect, then, that things will get worse before we can force them to get better. The Great Depression is fascinating for many reasons, among them as a study of how bad things had to get before skeletal social-democratic reforms like Social Security and labor rights could be secured. We shouldn’t think things are going to be any easier this time around, Obama or no.
I’m all for revolution, but can someone else please do the violent overthrowing bit? I’m more of a netroots warrior.
Yes, a revolution in which everyone is wearing pajamas and eating Ho-Hos would be much nicer all around.
Ylesias with a related thought. He’s no revolutionary, though.
Great post, Dave. I heard a podcast of that Turkel episode the other night, too–and speaking of podcasts, I’ve been listening to/reading Planet Money as well.
I’m hoping for a food/agriculture revolution as well. There’s momentum for real change, with Obama recently responding to Michael Pollan’s manifesto. Meanwhile, food costs are up by 15%, the demand at food pantries is up as well, donations are low, and a recent study says most obese children are actually underfed.
As for Chomsky’s remarks, does it really take fear of a revolt? Or maybe I should put it this way–doesn’t look like the people will revolt, but the market sure has. The “elites” (and I cringe using this word but whatever) are are also getting burned, and they supported the democratic candidate in unprecedented numbers this year. They are largely responsible for this mess and damned if they’re not going to clean it up because 1) they don’t like being so visibly the bad guys and 2) they want to go back to being super rich, and they’re realizing that exploiting us to this extent will backfire.
That’s my opinion today, anyway.
I’d offer the hardly original observation that capital rarely gives up its prerogatives willingly.
I just watched a student presentation on Marxist literary criticism where they emphasized this heavily (of course), and I thought of your post. Do you think this is the fundamental truth about society? I can’t count the number of times this truism reveals itself to me in daily life, or how often I refer to it in class no matter what we’re discussing.
Then again, remember, Yes we can! (Though I suppose it’s a bit naive to presume, as an upper-middle-class, educated, white citizen of the world’s most powerful country, to be in the always-sympathetic position of the proletariat, in the big picture.)
I’d generalize the point a bit more: People rarely give up power willingly.
If by “Yes, we can!” you mean the Obama campaign, I’d say don’t get too excited. We elected a centrist technocrat who gives great speeches and who is now building a government of centrist technocrats who will manage the empire much more efficiently than that fuckup Bush kid was able to do. They might not be up to the real tasks ahead of them.
If by “Yes, we can!” you have in mind the United Farm Workers’ slogan, I agree. Sí se puede. I guess I just can’t believe it’s going to be pretty.
the new yorker has an article on obama and liberalism. i happen to have read it the evening after listening to the pbs american experience documentary on fdr. (actually i’ve listened to almost the whole series now, just truman ending wwII left!)
the new yorker points out that obama’s election brings to an end an conservative era in american history, like fdr’s election in 32 and johnson’s in 64. this conservative period began with reagan’s election in 80. (basically the life spans of all of us here at TGW.)
whether obama can be as great as fdr remains to be seen.