[Marxism] "going through the experience" of Obama disillusionment

[Fred Feldman]

This is an expanded version of the introduction I submitted to the Paul
Krugman New York Review of Books article I sent in earlier today. I figure
putting it under one of the ongoing post-election threads would make it more
likely to be read.

I find Krugman's ideas interesting now (more than in the past) because they
are clearly on the rise. As Gary McLennan colorfully put it, the supply-side
eleven is heading for the showers, and the Keynesian eleven is taking the
field. This is the heart of whatever legitimacy lesser-evilism had in this
election. 

The differences of foreign policy were much more matters of nuance, and
noone can know yet how much nuance will survive into Obama's presidency.
Believe it or don't, but Hilary Clinton's becoming Secretary of State or
Gen. James Jones becoming national security adviser proves nothing but that
policy will continue to be 100 percent imperialist. It does not settle
precisely what that imperialist tactical course will be.

I have been puzzled about the fighting-the-last-war character of the debate
on the elections, and especially the debate after the elections which has
been even more primitive than before, if anything. Comrades act as though
those who saw something positive in the election of Obama were repeating the
idea that Goldwater would launch nuclear war, while Johnson represented
peace. (I always had a softer view of Goldwater than that, perhaps because
he looked like my zeyda, aside from my general rejection to this day of
lesser-evilism.)

One thing that really puzzled me was Gary McLennan's description of me (and
others who also did not show symptoms), but especially me, since I was not a
lesser-evilist about Obama, including but not limited to my voting for
McKinney, as a "Panglossian." 

Well, on thinking about it, I admit that I am probably more of a
"Panglossian" than Gary. Most people who are qualitatively less
"Panglossian" than Gary are, I suspect, under suicide watches. I hardly
remember a post of his, at least about US politics, that does not end with
calls to despair, hopelessness, assurances of doom. His central slogan seems
to me to be, "Surrender all hope, ye who enter here." But contrary to what
may be his belief, this is not a transitional slogan.

Gary, for instance, hardly imagined that Iran would make it through the Bush
administration un-bombed or even un-nuked, and I certainly can't say I
wasn't worried myself, but so it seems likely to be.
Iran's future under the Obama administration is undetermined, but I think
Iran is certain to have more to say about it than Gary is willing to allow.

I think one thing that may have qualified me as a way-out Panglossian was
submissions that challenged the claim that Obama would be required by the
rich to demand immediate payment from working people for all the dollars
that was being turned over to the bankers as bailout money. Obama would be
on a tight leash requiring him to militantly slash every social program --
unemployment compensation, social security, Medicare, you name it -- in
order to balance the budget. His appointments -- most of whom had been known
as "deficit hawks" at one time or another -- guaranteed this.

I thought this approach would be harmful economically -- possibly provoking
a complete collapse of the mass US consumer market, a disaster for world not
just US capitalism -- and politically suicidal. If the bailout infuriated
people, you could imagine how they would feel about being directly demanded
to pay for it out of their social benefits, schools and so on. Especially
since working people know things are getting rougher as is, and will
continue to do so.

I doubted this would happen whoever was elected, because I saw -- for the
time being -- that deficit hawkery was collapsing, as it was and still is.
Almost no one was demanding that other aspects of the budget be slashed to
pay for the bailouts. I assumed that something like Obama's proposed
stimulus was in the offing, and that deficit hawkery was probably on
sabbatical -- not only in the United States but in all imperialist
countries.

Partly, I think this reflects not primarily a profound understanding of how
capitalism works, but more the demoralizing impact of decades of successful
right-wing, antilabor, anti-Black policies, anti-immigrant policies. (I
hardly imagine that we are done with these -- watch the auto bailout
process, for example). The "saviors" are clearly out to milk the workers for
all they're worth.

But it has become another norm among radicals that capitalism can
ONLY cut benefits, ONLY cut wages, ONLY cut social security, ONLY reduce job
opportunities. Public works -- don't make me laugh. This is capitalism,
stupid! And so on. But it just ain't so. Capitalism can be "reformed". It is
always being "reformed". It just can't be reformed into something else
--into anything other anexploitative, oppressive, racist, repressive, and
warmaking social order.

People who think I am Panglossian because I believe actual changes to be
POSSIBLE are simply out to lunch, and will be politically disarmed or
otherwise ineffective if Obama proves not to be an exact continuation of
Clinton or Bush which I think, under the circumstances, is likely. 

I actually think we should also be preparing to argue why working people and
other oppressed groups, above all Blacks and Latinos, should not settle for
the crusts of bread Obama may WELL offer. 

What is needed from the oppressed and exploited in the next period -- and I
have no definite idea whether this will come about or not in the near future
-- is not so much disappointment, disillusionment, heartbreak and despair
but a willingness to fight for a better world when the weakness
of the rulers, their need to do things somewhat differently begins to open
up other possibilities. We need to prepare to answer claims that whatever
Obama will do is enough -- and it is not impossible that he will do some
things that make life more livable, relatively under the given economic
conditions, for working people. 

It has been common on the left to refer to the New Deal as a "failure"
because it did not decisively end the economic crisis. I think this misses
certain fact -- for decades since, the working class as a whole, and the
Blacks and Latinos included, depended on social security, unemployment
compensation, welfare, trade unions and other gains that were established
and corrupted as well under the aegis of the New Deal.