Earlier this month Owen Jones had something to say of the "surprise" outcome of the U.S. election--specifically, that it was no surprise. Discontent, not least over such matters as the purchasing power of hard-pressed consumers, tends to work against incumbents--and Kamala Harris, whose substitution for President Joe Biden on the ballot a scarce four months before election day in a manner many criticized as not just belated and undemocratic but incompetent, saw her promise continuity to a public which, on various grounds, seems to see continuity as an existential threat to the things they care about. Of course, many others have said that, but Jones does sum up the situation in a last sentence that I think merits attention from anyone considering the election, and what it reminds one about regarding the limits of the kind of politics the Democratic candidate ran on, namely that "voters . . . wanted politicians to solve their problems."
Alas, in the eyes of the centrist that desire has always been suspect--and in an era in which those who espouse centrism regard themselves as less and less able to do just that than their predecessors, simply unreasonable. Unsurprisingly centrists have a harder and harder time winning elections these days--and equally unsurprising, centrists refuse to acknowledge any connection between one fact and the other.
Tuesday, December 3, 2024
Owen Jones on Centrism in 2017
Some years ago Owen Jones took on the matter of centrism. As Mr. Jones remarked, centrists present themselves as "above ideology: pragmatic, focused on 'what works,' being grown up," in contrast with the extremists to the right of them, and (especially) the extremists to the left of them, while when one moves beyond the abstract principles to specific policy positions one finds that they offer "a blend of market liberalism, social liberalism and--more often than not--a hawkish military posture." Translating to an obliviousness about the reality that they are just another pack of ideologues pushing most of the substance of right-wing politics with an insistence quite at odds with their pretensions to an enlightened moderation.
All this seems to me about right as a characterization of British Labour party centrism. It also seems to me that Jones was right about how centrists have conducted themselves amid what must now be regarded as decades of not only economic stagnation but economic crisis and nationalistic backlash, "offer[ing] little evidence of reflection about their plight," sure that everyone but themselves is to blame for their rejection by a public as they refuse to admit the existence of problems, let alone suggest solutions.
Of course, in considering what this has meant for the Labour Party, where the centrists were out of power amid the ascendancy of "Corbynism" (and going out of their minds over the fact), Jones would seem to have underestimated centrism's capacity to recover politically--and this without modifying themselves in the slightest. Thus does the last sentence of his comment read that "until [the centrists] come to terms with their own failures, they will surely never rule again." Not quite two-and-a-half years later Keir Starmer ousted Jeremy Corbyn from the party leadership, while if it is undeniable that Starmer passed himself off as a social democrat at the time of the contest, his quick and brazen retreat from his promises (confirmed in his repudiation of almost all of them by the time of the 2024 General Election, as an examination of the party's GE Manifesto shows, while he engaged in a ruthless purge of the left-leaning members of the party in Parliament), makes it almost impossible to deny that the center is back in control of not just the party but the country without having come to terms with said failures as it shamelessly flogs the same old policies.
Still, in fairness to Jones one should note that if the center returned not just the leadership of the party but to 10 Downing Street it did so in most unusual circumstances. The election of 2024, after all, came after fourteen straight years of Tory rule with little but a train of disasters to show for it ( Austerity, Brexit, the disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 sterling crisis) that ignominiously ended one prime ministership after another in unprecedented succession (David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss each leaving office in, to use one of Ms. Truss' favorite words, "disgrace"); and with the particularly unfortunate and multiply unsalable Rishi Sunak at the head as Nigel Farage's Reform UK split the right's vote in a manner unseen in British electoral history; which enabled Starmer to become Prime Minister even with his party getting the ballots of a mere fifth of the eligible voters (rather less than Jeremy Corbyn lost with in 2017, and even less than he lost with in 2019). Nevertheless, if Starmer's becoming Prime Minister is less explicable as a Labour victory than as a shocking Tory collapse that one can be forgiven for recalling to the minds of the historically literate of 2024 the shake-up of the electoral system seen in 1924, it still happened, a reminder of just how much business-as-usual manages to creak on in the absence of anything like genuine public support for political "leaders" and the policies they advance as a product of "consensus."
All this seems to me about right as a characterization of British Labour party centrism. It also seems to me that Jones was right about how centrists have conducted themselves amid what must now be regarded as decades of not only economic stagnation but economic crisis and nationalistic backlash, "offer[ing] little evidence of reflection about their plight," sure that everyone but themselves is to blame for their rejection by a public as they refuse to admit the existence of problems, let alone suggest solutions.
Of course, in considering what this has meant for the Labour Party, where the centrists were out of power amid the ascendancy of "Corbynism" (and going out of their minds over the fact), Jones would seem to have underestimated centrism's capacity to recover politically--and this without modifying themselves in the slightest. Thus does the last sentence of his comment read that "until [the centrists] come to terms with their own failures, they will surely never rule again." Not quite two-and-a-half years later Keir Starmer ousted Jeremy Corbyn from the party leadership, while if it is undeniable that Starmer passed himself off as a social democrat at the time of the contest, his quick and brazen retreat from his promises (confirmed in his repudiation of almost all of them by the time of the 2024 General Election, as an examination of the party's GE Manifesto shows, while he engaged in a ruthless purge of the left-leaning members of the party in Parliament), makes it almost impossible to deny that the center is back in control of not just the party but the country without having come to terms with said failures as it shamelessly flogs the same old policies.
Still, in fairness to Jones one should note that if the center returned not just the leadership of the party but to 10 Downing Street it did so in most unusual circumstances. The election of 2024, after all, came after fourteen straight years of Tory rule with little but a train of disasters to show for it ( Austerity, Brexit, the disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 sterling crisis) that ignominiously ended one prime ministership after another in unprecedented succession (David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss each leaving office in, to use one of Ms. Truss' favorite words, "disgrace"); and with the particularly unfortunate and multiply unsalable Rishi Sunak at the head as Nigel Farage's Reform UK split the right's vote in a manner unseen in British electoral history; which enabled Starmer to become Prime Minister even with his party getting the ballots of a mere fifth of the eligible voters (rather less than Jeremy Corbyn lost with in 2017, and even less than he lost with in 2019). Nevertheless, if Starmer's becoming Prime Minister is less explicable as a Labour victory than as a shocking Tory collapse that one can be forgiven for recalling to the minds of the historically literate of 2024 the shake-up of the electoral system seen in 1924, it still happened, a reminder of just how much business-as-usual manages to creak on in the absence of anything like genuine public support for political "leaders" and the policies they advance as a product of "consensus."
Is Britain Without London Really Poorer Than Any U.S. State?
About a decade ago the Spectator's Fraser Nelson made the observation that when London is cut out of the picture Britain is poorer than Mississippi when considered in terms of per capita Gross Domestic Product, with comparisons of this sort since becoming a commonplace.
Is it really true, however?
Recently checking the relevant statistics at the Office of National Statistics I found that in per capita terms London was in 2022 almost twice as "rich" as the rest of Britain, with a per capita GDP of £63,400 to £32,900.
As sterling equaled $1.24 on average in 2022, one may say that Britain outside London had a per capita GDP of $40,800 that year. Meanwhile (going by the GDP figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the mid-year population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau) the poorest U.S. state was Mississippi, which had a per capita GDP of $48,600 in that year--while second-poorest Alabama had a rather higher $56,200. In other words, Britain outside London was about a quarter poorer than Alabama, and a seventh poorer than Mississippi, when judged by that metric.
The result is that the numbers really do bear out the claim--unfortunately for Britain. Still, significant as the regional disparity may be within Britain, the disparity within London itself should not be overlooked. The city has a Gini coefficient of 0.58--which bespeaks far greater inequality in London than in the country as a whole (Britain's score ranged over 32-33 in 2017-2021), and indeed a wider disparity than has been observed in countries like Botswana and Colombia. It is thus not Londoners who are rich, but a comparative few of them--once again, the differences between classes trumping the differences between regions, though of course acknowledgment of the fact is less than congenial for commentators who prefer to concentrate their attention, and their audience's, on anything else.
Meanwhile, whether one thinks in terms of region or class the reality is inseparable from the way the British economy has transformed since Margaret Thatcher's time, with a near half century of neoliberal reform thoroughly deindustrializing and financializing Britain. London has been a beneficiary of financialization, and the city's emergence as a second or even first home for a disproportionate share of the planet Earth's oligarchs, their hangers-on, parasites, etc.--while other regions have had less to show in the way of anything to blunt the losses.
Of course, Keir Starmer's new government being what it predictably is, anyone would be very naive indeed to expect any significant change in direction any time soon--with whatever little room there may have been for those questioning this path to continue hoping for change pretty much shrinking every time Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves makes a public statement.
Is it really true, however?
Recently checking the relevant statistics at the Office of National Statistics I found that in per capita terms London was in 2022 almost twice as "rich" as the rest of Britain, with a per capita GDP of £63,400 to £32,900.
As sterling equaled $1.24 on average in 2022, one may say that Britain outside London had a per capita GDP of $40,800 that year. Meanwhile (going by the GDP figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the mid-year population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau) the poorest U.S. state was Mississippi, which had a per capita GDP of $48,600 in that year--while second-poorest Alabama had a rather higher $56,200. In other words, Britain outside London was about a quarter poorer than Alabama, and a seventh poorer than Mississippi, when judged by that metric.
The result is that the numbers really do bear out the claim--unfortunately for Britain. Still, significant as the regional disparity may be within Britain, the disparity within London itself should not be overlooked. The city has a Gini coefficient of 0.58--which bespeaks far greater inequality in London than in the country as a whole (Britain's score ranged over 32-33 in 2017-2021), and indeed a wider disparity than has been observed in countries like Botswana and Colombia. It is thus not Londoners who are rich, but a comparative few of them--once again, the differences between classes trumping the differences between regions, though of course acknowledgment of the fact is less than congenial for commentators who prefer to concentrate their attention, and their audience's, on anything else.
Meanwhile, whether one thinks in terms of region or class the reality is inseparable from the way the British economy has transformed since Margaret Thatcher's time, with a near half century of neoliberal reform thoroughly deindustrializing and financializing Britain. London has been a beneficiary of financialization, and the city's emergence as a second or even first home for a disproportionate share of the planet Earth's oligarchs, their hangers-on, parasites, etc.--while other regions have had less to show in the way of anything to blunt the losses.
Of course, Keir Starmer's new government being what it predictably is, anyone would be very naive indeed to expect any significant change in direction any time soon--with whatever little room there may have been for those questioning this path to continue hoping for change pretty much shrinking every time Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves makes a public statement.
Rethinking How We Talk About the Political Spectrum
Recently I remarked the unsatisfactory way in which we discuss political ideology in America.
Having done so it seems to me fair to offer a possible alternative that has seemed to me useful.
In explaining it I think it best to start by saying that, contrary to what some seem to think, the concepts of "liberal" and "conservative," "radical" and "reactionary," "right" and "left," and their various synonyms and derivatives deriving from the Enlightenment and its subsequent controversies remain entirely relevant to the discussion of American politics today. However, there is a significant gap between the labeling and the actualities that causes a lot of confusion. What people conventionally call "conservatives" tend to actually be reactionaries, desirous of restoring a past state of society (somehow going back to before the New Deal, or the Progressive era, or the counterculture of the 1960s, for example); what we call "liberals" and might more usefully call "centrists," who are really conservatives; and what people conventionally call the "left," insofar as this is identified with identity politics, is a conservative or reactionary politics which differs from the others in being the conservative or reactionary nationalism of groups which have been marginalized. Thus do all of them broadly embrace the neoliberal-neoconservative economic and social vision, domestically and internationally, with this at most being adapted in an age of ascendant economic nationalism and geopolitical shifts (above all, related to the rise of China).
Considering the picture of conservatives who are really reactionaries, centrists who are conservatives, and a left that is not really farther to the left than the others, it has seemed to me fair to, following Richard Hofstadter's precedent, refer to conservatism today as "pseudo-conservatism," and extend this to the others by making "pseudo-liberalism" a synonym for today's centrism and so-called "liberalism," and label what many rush to call the left the "pseudo-left," respectively--with the pseudo-liberal, in line with their centrism, giving a good deal of ground to the pseudo-conservative in such areas as the economy and foreign policy, and making concessions to the pseudo-left's demands in the cultural sphere.
Of course, other tendencies exist. There are old-fashioned liberals--reformists eager to redress what they see as the problems of capitalism out of genuine social and economic concern rather than merely "upholding consensus" in the fashion of the centrists in those days in which their equation with liberalism was most justified, and supportive of much more reform than the minimalism toward which centrists tended even before the neoliberal turn. There are classically class-minded leftists interested in deeper change. But while one may speak of liberal or left individuals, media outlets, even political parties, and even argue that the associated sentiments are widely held among a large part of the population, none is an organized and significant force at the level of national politics. That is a very different thing from those tendencies having somehow disappeared, and anyone who writes them off totally makes a profound mistake (just as mid-century centrists made a profound mistake when they thought the "pseudo-conservative" right finished)--but there is no question that, as things have generally stood in recent decades, they have been very marginalized, so much so that those who would like to pretend they did not exist anymore have been able to get away with it (at least, in the muddled mainstream mind).
Having done so it seems to me fair to offer a possible alternative that has seemed to me useful.
In explaining it I think it best to start by saying that, contrary to what some seem to think, the concepts of "liberal" and "conservative," "radical" and "reactionary," "right" and "left," and their various synonyms and derivatives deriving from the Enlightenment and its subsequent controversies remain entirely relevant to the discussion of American politics today. However, there is a significant gap between the labeling and the actualities that causes a lot of confusion. What people conventionally call "conservatives" tend to actually be reactionaries, desirous of restoring a past state of society (somehow going back to before the New Deal, or the Progressive era, or the counterculture of the 1960s, for example); what we call "liberals" and might more usefully call "centrists," who are really conservatives; and what people conventionally call the "left," insofar as this is identified with identity politics, is a conservative or reactionary politics which differs from the others in being the conservative or reactionary nationalism of groups which have been marginalized. Thus do all of them broadly embrace the neoliberal-neoconservative economic and social vision, domestically and internationally, with this at most being adapted in an age of ascendant economic nationalism and geopolitical shifts (above all, related to the rise of China).
Considering the picture of conservatives who are really reactionaries, centrists who are conservatives, and a left that is not really farther to the left than the others, it has seemed to me fair to, following Richard Hofstadter's precedent, refer to conservatism today as "pseudo-conservatism," and extend this to the others by making "pseudo-liberalism" a synonym for today's centrism and so-called "liberalism," and label what many rush to call the left the "pseudo-left," respectively--with the pseudo-liberal, in line with their centrism, giving a good deal of ground to the pseudo-conservative in such areas as the economy and foreign policy, and making concessions to the pseudo-left's demands in the cultural sphere.
Of course, other tendencies exist. There are old-fashioned liberals--reformists eager to redress what they see as the problems of capitalism out of genuine social and economic concern rather than merely "upholding consensus" in the fashion of the centrists in those days in which their equation with liberalism was most justified, and supportive of much more reform than the minimalism toward which centrists tended even before the neoliberal turn. There are classically class-minded leftists interested in deeper change. But while one may speak of liberal or left individuals, media outlets, even political parties, and even argue that the associated sentiments are widely held among a large part of the population, none is an organized and significant force at the level of national politics. That is a very different thing from those tendencies having somehow disappeared, and anyone who writes them off totally makes a profound mistake (just as mid-century centrists made a profound mistake when they thought the "pseudo-conservative" right finished)--but there is no question that, as things have generally stood in recent decades, they have been very marginalized, so much so that those who would like to pretend they did not exist anymore have been able to get away with it (at least, in the muddled mainstream mind).
Discussing Centrism
The indifference to clarity and precision in the use of political terminology by persons presented to the world as "experts" has long been a theme of my writing, mainly by way of the muddle they unnecessarily and unhelpfully make of a great many terms, with one particularly fraught case "centrism." Most of the term's users think it means middle-of-the-roadness, oblivious as they are to the extent to which it is a very specific, highly articulated way of looking at the world spelled out explicitly by a great many thinkers in a great many classics of history and sociology in the mid-century period that were read not just by academic specialists but the more alert members of the general public as well (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr's The Age of Jackson and The Vital Center, Daniel Bell's The End of Ideology, various works by "consensus historians" such as Daniel Boorstin and Richard Hofstadter, etc.).
Of course, some will dismiss that theorizing as a relic of the past simply because of how far back in time it was, and how oblivious many in the present seem to be to it. However, American political culture at large, the content of the American news media, the conduct of policy and politics--the mainstream's notions of what views are allowable or not allowable in public, who is and is not an expert, how the news is to be presented, its apparent propensity for "both sidesism," etc., etc.--are explicable in terms of that mid-century theory, one reflection of which is how a great many persons in and out of public life who cannot even begin to provide a coherent explanation of centrism in the sense in which I am discussing it here nevertheless speak, act and give every sign of thinking like textbook centrists, the principles come to be so embedded in American political culture that without any exposure to explicit presentation of the theory they are sure of the associated prescriptions being correct, somehow. Indeed, they even speak the language of centrist theory--speaking of "pragmatism," "pluralism," "civility," "objectivity," "expertise" as good things, and "ideology" and "extremism" as bad things, even as they have only the haziest grasp of these concepts, let alone the larger thinking from which they are inextricable.
A reminder of how much power unconsidered ideas have over us, the result is that it seems well worthwhile to flatly explain what it is that they are talking about[LINK].
Of course, some will dismiss that theorizing as a relic of the past simply because of how far back in time it was, and how oblivious many in the present seem to be to it. However, American political culture at large, the content of the American news media, the conduct of policy and politics--the mainstream's notions of what views are allowable or not allowable in public, who is and is not an expert, how the news is to be presented, its apparent propensity for "both sidesism," etc., etc.--are explicable in terms of that mid-century theory, one reflection of which is how a great many persons in and out of public life who cannot even begin to provide a coherent explanation of centrism in the sense in which I am discussing it here nevertheless speak, act and give every sign of thinking like textbook centrists, the principles come to be so embedded in American political culture that without any exposure to explicit presentation of the theory they are sure of the associated prescriptions being correct, somehow. Indeed, they even speak the language of centrist theory--speaking of "pragmatism," "pluralism," "civility," "objectivity," "expertise" as good things, and "ideology" and "extremism" as bad things, even as they have only the haziest grasp of these concepts, let alone the larger thinking from which they are inextricable.
A reminder of how much power unconsidered ideas have over us, the result is that it seems well worthwhile to flatly explain what it is that they are talking about[LINK].
"What is Centrism?": A Few Thoughts on the Matter
Looking up what centrism is--perhaps asking your friendly neighborhood AI--one is likely to get the answer that it is a tendency that is neither right nor left, but in the middle, which is very concerned for liberal institutions, and compromise, and very averse to "ideology." Whoever is giving the answer may also say that centrism sets great store by things called "pragmatism," "pluralism" and "civility."
It is a less satisfying answer than it may appear at first glance. After all, if one favors the "middle," why do they do that? Why should one assume the answers lie in the middle, rather than the "extremes?" How does one know where the middle and the extremes are anyway? In claiming to stand for liberalism, how do centrists understand the concept--and navigate the dilemmas political actors constantly face? Why do they make such a virtue of compromise, and dislike "ideology" so much--and for that matter, seem so oblivious to the fact that even before going any further centrism itself already sounds like an ideology, making being anti-ideological a hypocritical pose? These terms "pragmatism" and "pluralism" and "civility"--what exactly do they mean, in themselves, in connection with centrist priorities, in practice?
The answers to these questions are by no means esoteric. As anyone who has read Arthur Schlesinger, Daniel Bell and their contemporary "fellow travelers" finds, there really is a very elaborately structured understanding of the world spelled out in their writings--a very thoroughly developed ideology--which is the basis of what one calls "centrism."
Short version: centrism is basically conservatism, and understandable in terms of two particular aspects of that tradition, which are not mutually exclusive. One is America's tradition of "liberal conservatism"--the conservatism of a liberal society where elites are committed to property rights, marketplace exchange and representative institutions as against outright dictatorship (monarchical or otherwise), but less enthusiastic about the "common man" having a say in public affairs (that important centrist Louis Hartz summing it up well as a "tradition which hates the ancien régime up to a certain point, loves capitalism, and fears democracy"). The other is the tradition of "classical conservatism" that emerged in reaction against the Enlightenment, galvanized by the French Revolution. If that tradition has paralleled (and maybe informed) America's tradition from the start, centrism produced what is readable as a version updated for mid-twentieth century America, with the essential framework retained even as centrism has gone through important evolutions.
In line with the conservatism common to both of these, the centrist is deeply pessimistic about human reason, "human nature," and the possibility of rationally and deliberately altering the structure of society to positive ends; more anxious for order than equality, justice or freedom; highly respectful of existing arrangements as the best that can reasonably be hoped for, not least in keeping a bad human nature in check for the sake of upholding said order; and fearful of the "lower orders," with their worst nightmare their becoming mobilized behind some agenda for change, in a way that earlier generations of conservatives identified with 1789, but which they identify with 1917. In line with the application of this conservatism to a liberal society it keeps representative institutions, but insists on the need to "manage democracy" very carefully. Hence its insistence on the pragmatic, pluralistic, civil discourse, which takes the world as it finds it without bothering for deeper understandings (pragmatic), sees society as a collection of different, competing interests none necessarily more important or valid than the others (pluralist), and prefers to leave the ethics out of politics in favor of those who disagree doing so "respectfully" (civility). Thus, the centrist holds that those engaged in the political dialogue must forget all about getting to the roots of things and what is right or wrong, fair and unfair; treat the structure of society as settled and off-limits to discussion; negotiate the issues one at a time without (un-pragmatically) seeing connections between one thing and another, while respecting their opponents as being as legitimate as themselves, assuming their good faith, and not worrying over who does or does not have the power in the situation as they negotiate; and if the resulting compromises are not to their liking, take their frustration with good grace, and hope to do better "next time" while never thinking of breaking with the rules. Thus does the centrist focus on mediating the process, with the good centrist politician not the principled fighter for a cause, but the one who "upholds consensus" behind things as they are by seeing that every interest able and willing to play by the rules is represented, and in the process discontent, if not necessarily allayed, prevented from reaching that point at which it radicalizes and divides and opens the door to the revolutions which haunt the centrist's imagination by way of the appropriate "course adjustments." Thus there may be change, but as little as possible, the minimum required for the sake of preserving the social structure, rather than setting about solving societal problems simply because they are problems, let alone turning the social order into something else, as with those leftists who seek a "reformist" path toward a different order.
Thus is anyone unwilling to play by these rules, who does get to the roots of things, question the social structure, raise the matters of power and rights and wrongs and what is fair and unfair, dispute their opponents' good faith as they have in mind priorities besides consensus preservation--valuing equality, freedom, justice over the "status quo"--excluded from the dialogue as ideologue and extremist. Thus to speak of capitalism and class, to question inequality, to cite the theories of critics of the system, to demand more than consensus-preserving course adjustments, to advocate mass movements, is to rule oneself out of the discussion, and indeed one does not hear of these things in the mainstream, with all this has meant for the left wherever these rules prevail--all as the right less obviously fell afoul of the rules, and the center was less apt to hold it to account for its failings.
Thus, one might add, does the centrist think the limitation of the field to two political parties not so far apart in policy and a collegial attitude among the national elite a good thing, thus do they in the digital age panic over "fake news" and yearn for the days when people watched one of just three nightly news broadcasts, thus do they have no problem telling the public to "hold its nose and vote" for one of the two parties rather than looking to any others, no matter how dissatisfied they are--because the limitation of choices of party and candidate and sources of information, and the lowering of expectations, are all essential to "managing democracy."
The result is an informally but tightly regulated, elite-administered discourse that uses liberal institutions to conservative political ends, with even change intended to uphold the existing social structure above all. As centrism's theoreticians themselves acknowledge, all this is very frustrating for those earnest about addressing society's problems, or ardent about the disenfranchised having a say in social affairs, or simply think democracy ought to offer something better than "Hold your nose and vote," and less than pleasing even to many who are on the whole contented with things as they are. Even as the left correctly sees in the center a fundamentally anti-leftist force many conservatives prefer a firmer commitment to their own principles than the "pragmatic," change-averse, compromise-minded center, see it in the avowed right, and prefer it. And indeed the unattractiveness of the centrist framework has plausibly been a factor in its being so little explained. Certainly, I think, it is few who understand it well--but many of those who do, even if sympathetic to the centrist outlook, knowing how uninspiring it is, think "discretion the better part of valor." They may well be right, given how centrism has endured as the conventional wisdom of American politics these past many decades, the center's essential political philosophy prevailing in American life even as the center's positions have shifted considerably in many a matter--an evolution, one must note, reflecting centrism's adherence to that philosophy. Consistently opposing the left, but reaching out to the right--indeed, consistently allying with the right against the left--the center succeeded in marginalizing the left, leaving the right the source of initiative within a political discourse that the center, again, mediated, shifting the discussion rightward and with it those stances the center took as it performed what it regarded as its role within American politics.
It is a less satisfying answer than it may appear at first glance. After all, if one favors the "middle," why do they do that? Why should one assume the answers lie in the middle, rather than the "extremes?" How does one know where the middle and the extremes are anyway? In claiming to stand for liberalism, how do centrists understand the concept--and navigate the dilemmas political actors constantly face? Why do they make such a virtue of compromise, and dislike "ideology" so much--and for that matter, seem so oblivious to the fact that even before going any further centrism itself already sounds like an ideology, making being anti-ideological a hypocritical pose? These terms "pragmatism" and "pluralism" and "civility"--what exactly do they mean, in themselves, in connection with centrist priorities, in practice?
The answers to these questions are by no means esoteric. As anyone who has read Arthur Schlesinger, Daniel Bell and their contemporary "fellow travelers" finds, there really is a very elaborately structured understanding of the world spelled out in their writings--a very thoroughly developed ideology--which is the basis of what one calls "centrism."
Short version: centrism is basically conservatism, and understandable in terms of two particular aspects of that tradition, which are not mutually exclusive. One is America's tradition of "liberal conservatism"--the conservatism of a liberal society where elites are committed to property rights, marketplace exchange and representative institutions as against outright dictatorship (monarchical or otherwise), but less enthusiastic about the "common man" having a say in public affairs (that important centrist Louis Hartz summing it up well as a "tradition which hates the ancien régime up to a certain point, loves capitalism, and fears democracy"). The other is the tradition of "classical conservatism" that emerged in reaction against the Enlightenment, galvanized by the French Revolution. If that tradition has paralleled (and maybe informed) America's tradition from the start, centrism produced what is readable as a version updated for mid-twentieth century America, with the essential framework retained even as centrism has gone through important evolutions.
In line with the conservatism common to both of these, the centrist is deeply pessimistic about human reason, "human nature," and the possibility of rationally and deliberately altering the structure of society to positive ends; more anxious for order than equality, justice or freedom; highly respectful of existing arrangements as the best that can reasonably be hoped for, not least in keeping a bad human nature in check for the sake of upholding said order; and fearful of the "lower orders," with their worst nightmare their becoming mobilized behind some agenda for change, in a way that earlier generations of conservatives identified with 1789, but which they identify with 1917. In line with the application of this conservatism to a liberal society it keeps representative institutions, but insists on the need to "manage democracy" very carefully. Hence its insistence on the pragmatic, pluralistic, civil discourse, which takes the world as it finds it without bothering for deeper understandings (pragmatic), sees society as a collection of different, competing interests none necessarily more important or valid than the others (pluralist), and prefers to leave the ethics out of politics in favor of those who disagree doing so "respectfully" (civility). Thus, the centrist holds that those engaged in the political dialogue must forget all about getting to the roots of things and what is right or wrong, fair and unfair; treat the structure of society as settled and off-limits to discussion; negotiate the issues one at a time without (un-pragmatically) seeing connections between one thing and another, while respecting their opponents as being as legitimate as themselves, assuming their good faith, and not worrying over who does or does not have the power in the situation as they negotiate; and if the resulting compromises are not to their liking, take their frustration with good grace, and hope to do better "next time" while never thinking of breaking with the rules. Thus does the centrist focus on mediating the process, with the good centrist politician not the principled fighter for a cause, but the one who "upholds consensus" behind things as they are by seeing that every interest able and willing to play by the rules is represented, and in the process discontent, if not necessarily allayed, prevented from reaching that point at which it radicalizes and divides and opens the door to the revolutions which haunt the centrist's imagination by way of the appropriate "course adjustments." Thus there may be change, but as little as possible, the minimum required for the sake of preserving the social structure, rather than setting about solving societal problems simply because they are problems, let alone turning the social order into something else, as with those leftists who seek a "reformist" path toward a different order.
Thus is anyone unwilling to play by these rules, who does get to the roots of things, question the social structure, raise the matters of power and rights and wrongs and what is fair and unfair, dispute their opponents' good faith as they have in mind priorities besides consensus preservation--valuing equality, freedom, justice over the "status quo"--excluded from the dialogue as ideologue and extremist. Thus to speak of capitalism and class, to question inequality, to cite the theories of critics of the system, to demand more than consensus-preserving course adjustments, to advocate mass movements, is to rule oneself out of the discussion, and indeed one does not hear of these things in the mainstream, with all this has meant for the left wherever these rules prevail--all as the right less obviously fell afoul of the rules, and the center was less apt to hold it to account for its failings.
Thus, one might add, does the centrist think the limitation of the field to two political parties not so far apart in policy and a collegial attitude among the national elite a good thing, thus do they in the digital age panic over "fake news" and yearn for the days when people watched one of just three nightly news broadcasts, thus do they have no problem telling the public to "hold its nose and vote" for one of the two parties rather than looking to any others, no matter how dissatisfied they are--because the limitation of choices of party and candidate and sources of information, and the lowering of expectations, are all essential to "managing democracy."
The result is an informally but tightly regulated, elite-administered discourse that uses liberal institutions to conservative political ends, with even change intended to uphold the existing social structure above all. As centrism's theoreticians themselves acknowledge, all this is very frustrating for those earnest about addressing society's problems, or ardent about the disenfranchised having a say in social affairs, or simply think democracy ought to offer something better than "Hold your nose and vote," and less than pleasing even to many who are on the whole contented with things as they are. Even as the left correctly sees in the center a fundamentally anti-leftist force many conservatives prefer a firmer commitment to their own principles than the "pragmatic," change-averse, compromise-minded center, see it in the avowed right, and prefer it. And indeed the unattractiveness of the centrist framework has plausibly been a factor in its being so little explained. Certainly, I think, it is few who understand it well--but many of those who do, even if sympathetic to the centrist outlook, knowing how uninspiring it is, think "discretion the better part of valor." They may well be right, given how centrism has endured as the conventional wisdom of American politics these past many decades, the center's essential political philosophy prevailing in American life even as the center's positions have shifted considerably in many a matter--an evolution, one must note, reflecting centrism's adherence to that philosophy. Consistently opposing the left, but reaching out to the right--indeed, consistently allying with the right against the left--the center succeeded in marginalizing the left, leaving the right the source of initiative within a political discourse that the center, again, mediated, shifting the discussion rightward and with it those stances the center took as it performed what it regarded as its role within American politics.
Two Posts From the Summer Regarding the Election
Back amid the crisis following President Joe Biden's disastrous performance in the (unusually early) first presidential debate back in June I wrote two posts. One addressed the media furor over Biden's mental fitness, which generally showed the media at its worst. The other focused on the way in which Joe Biden's "record-player moment" during a similar event back in 2019, which raised questions about his being "out of touch" and even his mental fitness then, was not being mentioned at all amid that furor--and what that slighting indicated about the press. The rush of events meant that both pieces came to seem too dated to be worth bothering with before I had the chance to put them up, but now with the election over, and the matter of the Democratic Party's bungling of the election being much chewed over, they seem to me topical again--and so for whatever they are worth, here they are.
Does No One Remember Joseph Biden's "Record-Player Moment?"
Back in September 2019 during the Democratic Party's presidential primary, in a debate among the candidates, Joseph Biden responded to a question about the effects of segregation with an incoherent string of remarks apparently to do with improving the education of young children in which he repeatedly yelled "School!" in the tone of a Frankenstein's monster. What got more attention than that, however, was the reference Biden made to the necessity of parents having the "record player" on so that their children could hear more words and thus enlarge their vocabularies.
At the time many already thought that Mr. Biden was "too old" for the presidency--not merely at a point in his life at which the odds of his still being of sufficiently sound mind and body five or ten years on to bear up under the responsibilities of the job were (few candidates aim to be one-termers) were increasingly open to doubt, but whether he was already becoming unsound that way, to say nothing of "being out of touch." And some thought that he would never recover from the "gaffe." That people would always remember Biden's response in that moment.
As it happens, amid the media's coverage of a Biden performance at the latest Biden-Trump spectacle that by all accounts was a disaster so great that the most Establishment organs are in despair over Biden's chances and calling upon him to give up the race and permit his place in the race to be taken by a more viable contender, I failed to find a single reference to his "record-player moment" in the press.
One can argue that this has been a matter of effective damage control carried out in the aftermath of the episode, as a Democratic Party leadership once again determined to get a reliable old centrist-neoliberal on the ticket even though this had cost them again and again over the years ultimately succeeded in warding off the challenges to Biden on the grounds of age, just as it had on the grounds of his centrism, and in the circumstances succeeded (as often it did not) in getting much of the public to "hold their nose and vote" for him. One can also argue that the "record-player moment" was buried under a pile of other gaffes (Biden was never thought brilliant even at the peak of his powers, or for that matter, honest or humble about his limitations) amid a general degradation of public discourse, which along with the "interesting times" in which we have apparently been cursed to live made any one of them simply seem less important.
However, it also seems to me to be the case that the vast majority of those who produce our "journalism," displaying signs of what they accuse Biden of much earlier in life, have no ability to recall anything that happened more than two weeks ago, let alone reference that knowledge in such a way as to help them illuminate the present. It also seems to me that even if they had the capacity to make and use such recollections this particular one would be inconvenient--suggesting that those who argued that Biden was unsuited to the nomination because of his condition were correct. After all, the way things work in our media is that the Establishment and its experts are never held accountable for being wrong.
By the same token those who challenge the Establishment are never given credit for being right, even though they are that about as often as the Establishment is wrong--which seems pretty much all the time these days.
At the time many already thought that Mr. Biden was "too old" for the presidency--not merely at a point in his life at which the odds of his still being of sufficiently sound mind and body five or ten years on to bear up under the responsibilities of the job were (few candidates aim to be one-termers) were increasingly open to doubt, but whether he was already becoming unsound that way, to say nothing of "being out of touch." And some thought that he would never recover from the "gaffe." That people would always remember Biden's response in that moment.
As it happens, amid the media's coverage of a Biden performance at the latest Biden-Trump spectacle that by all accounts was a disaster so great that the most Establishment organs are in despair over Biden's chances and calling upon him to give up the race and permit his place in the race to be taken by a more viable contender, I failed to find a single reference to his "record-player moment" in the press.
One can argue that this has been a matter of effective damage control carried out in the aftermath of the episode, as a Democratic Party leadership once again determined to get a reliable old centrist-neoliberal on the ticket even though this had cost them again and again over the years ultimately succeeded in warding off the challenges to Biden on the grounds of age, just as it had on the grounds of his centrism, and in the circumstances succeeded (as often it did not) in getting much of the public to "hold their nose and vote" for him. One can also argue that the "record-player moment" was buried under a pile of other gaffes (Biden was never thought brilliant even at the peak of his powers, or for that matter, honest or humble about his limitations) amid a general degradation of public discourse, which along with the "interesting times" in which we have apparently been cursed to live made any one of them simply seem less important.
However, it also seems to me to be the case that the vast majority of those who produce our "journalism," displaying signs of what they accuse Biden of much earlier in life, have no ability to recall anything that happened more than two weeks ago, let alone reference that knowledge in such a way as to help them illuminate the present. It also seems to me that even if they had the capacity to make and use such recollections this particular one would be inconvenient--suggesting that those who argued that Biden was unsuited to the nomination because of his condition were correct. After all, the way things work in our media is that the Establishment and its experts are never held accountable for being wrong.
By the same token those who challenge the Establishment are never given credit for being right, even though they are that about as often as the Establishment is wrong--which seems pretty much all the time these days.
On Joe Biden's "Brain"
For as long as I can remember I have despised the horse race-style coverage of electoral campaigns so beloved by the news media, which reflects the absolute worst in them, not least the preference for talking about politics rather than policy that is not just a matter of idiots being dazzled by "showbusiness for ugly people," but outright evasion of . . . everything else. Naturally they have delighted in President Joseph Biden's by-all-accounts disastrous performance in his unusually-early-for-the-season debate with the Republican nominee Donald Trump--because it gives them the chance to fill up the headlines with a virtually unprecedented turn in this horse race, namely an incumbent appearing mentally unfit for reelection and being publicly pressed to drop out of the race by his colleagues in his party and their backers, affording lots and lots of opportunity for the kind of palace intrigue crapola and sterile speculation about "what it all means" for how the horse will go with which they love to deluge their readers, listeners and viewers.
Indeed, the coverage has been so obsessive that Rebecca Solnit understandably characterizes "the pundit class" as "desperate to push Biden out of the race," with their eagerness here plausibly having consequences different from what they claim to desire. Moreover, even after this story's monopolizing American headlines for two weeks there is no sign that it is about to end any time soon. The New York Times and its far-from-the-worst-of-rather-a-bad-lot writer Ezra Klein do not impress me as sources of fact, truth or insight--but when the latter writes in the former that "The Nomination Crisis is Far From Over" I see no reason to doubt them, not least because the Times is all by itself in a position to do a very great deal to keep that crisis at the top of the news, all as the rest of the major media outlets of the country, across the painfully narrow portion of the political spectrum the mainstream heeds, show every sign of being happy to help in the performance of that particular task.
Indeed, the coverage has been so obsessive that Rebecca Solnit understandably characterizes "the pundit class" as "desperate to push Biden out of the race," with their eagerness here plausibly having consequences different from what they claim to desire. Moreover, even after this story's monopolizing American headlines for two weeks there is no sign that it is about to end any time soon. The New York Times and its far-from-the-worst-of-rather-a-bad-lot writer Ezra Klein do not impress me as sources of fact, truth or insight--but when the latter writes in the former that "The Nomination Crisis is Far From Over" I see no reason to doubt them, not least because the Times is all by itself in a position to do a very great deal to keep that crisis at the top of the news, all as the rest of the major media outlets of the country, across the painfully narrow portion of the political spectrum the mainstream heeds, show every sign of being happy to help in the performance of that particular task.
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
The Biases of Western Analysts Regarding the Chinese and Indian Economies: A Few Thoughts
For orthodox economists it has been bad enough that neoliberalism has had as its product not only social misery but developmental failure. Making things worse is that a nation should enjoy so much success for so long a time by way of rejecting neoliberal prescriptions, instead following a statist and mercantilist course of development that has stressed exactly the "hard" industries that finance-singing neoliberals are so prone to treat with disdain (along with those who stand up for them). That the government presiding over the progress has been run by a party still calling itself Communist (however little its actual policies may have to do with Communism), that international relations have become more hostile (indeed, even that China has become such a large producer of "green" technology of the kind the fossil fuel-worshipping right despises, such that one does not hear the right screaming against the recent tariffs on such goods in the name of their free-market pieties), has only lent a further edge to their hostility to China's gains. The result has been their endlessly predicting doom for China's growth, and even the outright collapse of the Chinese state--only to see China defying those predictions for decade after decade. Even the Great Recession, escalating trade war with the United States and its allies, and the COVID-19 pandemic, this remains the case, China's growth admittedly slowing, but still greatly superior to what the rest of the world has seen for the most part, with China's 4.7 percent a year average annual GDP growth rate in the crisis years of 2020-2023 enviable (certainly next to the U.S.' mere 2 percent, Europe's 1.1 percent, Japan's 0.3 percent over the same time frame)--and even the slowing seeming to bespeak not the failure but the maturity of an economy that by this point would seem to have surmounted any "middle income trap" to go by its high-technology exports (greater than those of the whole G-7 in the aggregate, and greater than those of the U.S. today in per capita terms).
Of course, none of this has given the doomsayers any pause, the predictions still forthcoming.
Such analysts' ceaseless doomsaying about China has had its complement in their comparative optimism about the prospects of India--which they view so much more positively because in contrast with the statist-mercantilist, manufacturing-minded Chinese model India presents a more thoroughly privatized-neoliberal, services-oriented, financialized economy of the sort they approve and champion, with India's undeniable explosion in inequality part of what they find a very welcome package. (If the term "billionaire Raj" is in many utterances a criticism of the combination of extreme wealth in a few hands with vast poverty, for such economic thinkers the country's generation of billion-dollar fortunes are India's glory.) That India is governed by a far right political party, and is seen as at least potentially a counterbalance to China (a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but also a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), only makes them more favorably disposed toward the country and the prospects of its economy.
Of course, none of this in itself means that China will not find its development stalling out, or that India will not eventually overtake China's progress (even if in the most bullish scenario this is apt to be later rather than sooner given China's very, very long lead with a GDP more than five times as big as India's, and a manufacturing value added more than ten times India's, to go by the United Nations numbers). What it does mean is that anyone taking an interest in that conversation ignores those very powerful, enduring, prejudices at their peril and should look the more closely at the specifics that analysts offer in support of their claims, rather than relying on their supposed "authoritative judgment" as "experts" in the way that the mainstream media ceaselessly encourages us to do--and pay particular attention to those who refuse to conform to the prevailing "consensus." A good example of this is Michael Roberts, a longtime City of London economist who has not towed the line, least of all on China and India--and, right or wrong, given us a good deal more to think about than do the purveyors of "elitism mixed with banality" so beloved of those besotted with pompous phrases like "the adults in the room."
Of course, none of this has given the doomsayers any pause, the predictions still forthcoming.
Such analysts' ceaseless doomsaying about China has had its complement in their comparative optimism about the prospects of India--which they view so much more positively because in contrast with the statist-mercantilist, manufacturing-minded Chinese model India presents a more thoroughly privatized-neoliberal, services-oriented, financialized economy of the sort they approve and champion, with India's undeniable explosion in inequality part of what they find a very welcome package. (If the term "billionaire Raj" is in many utterances a criticism of the combination of extreme wealth in a few hands with vast poverty, for such economic thinkers the country's generation of billion-dollar fortunes are India's glory.) That India is governed by a far right political party, and is seen as at least potentially a counterbalance to China (a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but also a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), only makes them more favorably disposed toward the country and the prospects of its economy.
Of course, none of this in itself means that China will not find its development stalling out, or that India will not eventually overtake China's progress (even if in the most bullish scenario this is apt to be later rather than sooner given China's very, very long lead with a GDP more than five times as big as India's, and a manufacturing value added more than ten times India's, to go by the United Nations numbers). What it does mean is that anyone taking an interest in that conversation ignores those very powerful, enduring, prejudices at their peril and should look the more closely at the specifics that analysts offer in support of their claims, rather than relying on their supposed "authoritative judgment" as "experts" in the way that the mainstream media ceaselessly encourages us to do--and pay particular attention to those who refuse to conform to the prevailing "consensus." A good example of this is Michael Roberts, a longtime City of London economist who has not towed the line, least of all on China and India--and, right or wrong, given us a good deal more to think about than do the purveyors of "elitism mixed with banality" so beloved of those besotted with pompous phrases like "the adults in the room."
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