Richard D. Wolff | Obama's Economic Significance

[xchrom]

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/22277-obamas-economic-significance



***SNIP

By 1960, relentless retreat from New Deal commitments had built pressures for something "really different." Americans began to grasp and resent that their "middle class" status was fading. Because equally relentless anti-communism had made criticism of business (let alone capitalism) dangerous, anger focused on government and taxes. Seeing opportunity, the conservative coalition redoubled attacks on the state: tax-and-spend enemies of the "middle-class" wasted money on undeserving welfare recipients who refused work. Buried were the facts that taxes had been shifted since 1945 from corporations and the richest individuals onto lower and especially middle-income Americans.

Such anti-government winds led presidential aspirants increasingly to posture as "outsiders" who would correct Washington's misbehaviors. John F. Kennedy was younger than previous presidential types and Catholic, someone different who at least verbally respected New Deal ideals. Outsider statuses were claimed by Jimmy Carter as farmer and Southerner, Ronald Reagan as actor and Californian, Bill Clinton as Arkansan and George Bush 2 as a Texas cowboy.

As these presidents advanced the conservative coalition agenda, mass resentment accumulated. Widening income and wealth inequalities generated their usual political and cultural consequences. In 2007-08, their usual economic consequence, a major crisis, arrived. Massive unemployment, home foreclosures, and so on - combined with the long-standing New Deal rollback - required a president with extra outsider dimensions.

Barrack Obama fit better than Hillary Clinton. Could he reliably further the conservative coalition's basic agenda while also symbolizing some link to the New Deal ethos (his vague "community organizer" past)? More importantly, by symbolizing a kind of social arrival/acceptance of African-Americans generally, might he neutralize likely popular oppositions to the next steps in rolling back the New Deal? Capitalism's crisis since 2007 could have been blamed on the conservative coalition and the system itself. The economically worst-victimized - especially African-Americans - might well have revitalized a new labor-radical coalition, absorbing the mass energies visible in the Occupy movements.

[Teamster Jeff]

1. K&R

Obama's economic significance lies in his being the latest and most outsider of postwar presidents serving the conservative agenda

Bingo

[hedda_foil]

2. Wowwwwww!!!! Professor Wolff fills in the missing link with this piece.

This is the part of history that has been buried since Roosevelt's death... the part that answers the question: "Why haven't our Dem political leaders fought back more?" Perhaps the road from then til now hasn't been as smooth as he depicts, but with the context he provides, the roadmap is plainly visible.

[Ron Green]

3. This is a clear-eyed look at how the branding works.

[woo me with science]

4. K&R We react. They have a long-term plan.

[truebluegreen]

5. +a zillion

[woo me with science]

6. K&R

[liberal_at_heart]

7. K&R

[kentuck]

8. I thought I was the only one that thought that??

A continuation of the conservative coalition agenda. We had our chance and blew it.