Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 19:09:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Economist Magazine: A leftist upsurge?


The left rises from the almost-dead

As Congress resumes, the left in America seems in a stronger position than
it has been for some years. Is this really so?  TWO years is a short time
in American politics. Already, more than two years before the primaries
for the presidential election in 2000, potential candidates have been
working the state fairs of the midwest and trailing moose, so they claim,
in New Hampshire. And already, the jockeying is raising an intriguing
possibility. The Republican revolutionaries look broken and tired,
Clintonism has had a long run, and the dull centrist consensus lacks fire.
Could it be that the time is ripe for the re-emergence of the left?

The evidence is scattered, but it is there nonetheless. A booming economy
with a tight labour market makes workers more secure and perhaps more
obstreperous, especially if wages have been standing still for a while.
The unions, under new leadership and after their first =93successful=94 strike
for some years, are feeling reinvigorated. Within the Democratic Party,
the two chief candidates for 2000 are both convinced they need labour=92s
help. And, more generally, if politics (unlike economics) still moves in
cycles, America=92s recent fling with the radical right is bound to be
followed by romance with its opposite.  Progressive, or unAmerican?

At the turn of the century, a sudden attack of conscience at the human
cost of America=92s expansion led to the brief creation of the country=92s
first respectable left-wing political force, the Progressive Party. The
Progressives aimed to remedy the =93social sins=94 of America by
trust-busting, consumer protection, factory laws and redistribution of
wealth through the income tax. It may not be coincidence that the word
=93progressive=94 is now back in fashion in American politics. Conditions are
strikingly similar: impressive prosperity, accompanied (as the golden
1950s were not), with a strong sense of social and moral decay. The
combination seems to cry out, once again, for an activist and principled
politics of the left.

In left-wing terms, however, America is infertile ground. Socialism, let
alone communism, never took root there. In some parts of the country,
notably the South, labour unions have never prospered. America is a land
of individuals rather than co-operators, of unrepentant capitalists, of
rugged entrepreneurs who get on by their own gumption or are left behind
as failures. Americans are not without private generosity for those who
fall by the wayside (so long as they are deemed worthy); but they dislike
institutionalised generosity (epitomised by the old welfare system) that
saps a man=92s will to heave himself up.

More important, however, for the prospects of the left, is the fact that
America regards itself as classless. Amazingly, it thought this when John
D. Rockefeller, clad in a fur coat, gave dimes to New York beggars; and it
still thinks it now, despite all evidence to the contrary. America=92s
multi-millionaires are not a hated caste because, in theory, any American
has the chance to be Bill Gates. As for the members of the black
underclass, these have fallen so far outside the system that it is thought
unremarkable to sideline them. The middle class, by its own reckoning, now
stretches to encompass about three-quarters of the population. America=92s
patent internal conflicts are readily attributed to race, gender,
immigration and the clash of generations; but they are not, and never have
been, ascribed to class.

Geopolitics has crimped the left, too. In the 1930s, government
intervention (notably in Roosevelt=92s New Deal) was not only tolerated but
appreciated. After the second world war, however, America seemed to become
over-sensitised to the least whiff of =93red=94 socialism. Johnson=92s Great
Society programmes were greeted with more suspicion than Roosevelt=92s had
been, and were soon dismissed as white elephants. Even in 1993, when the
Evil Empire lay in the dust, Hillary Clinton=92s attempt to bring in a
national system of health care could be destroyed with two words:
=93socialised medicine=94. Americans may not have much socialism to deal with,
but they think they know it when they see it; and their first instinct is
to stamp it out.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the death of the left has been frequently
announced in recent years. Ronald Reagan seemed to deal the blow in 1981,
when the government intervened to crush a strike by the air- traffic
controllers; as a result, the unions, already struggling, went into marked
decline. In 1992, the Democrats=92 choice of Mr Clinton suggested that the
left had definitively made its peace with business, enterprise and even
free trade, thus signing its own death-warrant. In 1994, the old
tax-and-spend barons were ejected from Congress; in 1996 Mr Clinton, now a
(more-or-less) confirmed budget-balancer, ended the automatic federal
entitlement to welfare. In every case, the reaction from the left-wing of
his party has been the odd, pitiful, powerless squeak.

Yet left-wing tendencies, broadly defined as a faith in government rather
than the market, have always had more of a hold on America than Americans
like to admit. Corporations cling to their tax-breaks, welfare of a kind.
Pensioners, rich or poor, cherish their Social Security payments.
Ranchers, miners, sugar-growers, tobacco-growers (those fearless
individualists!) receive enormous government subsidies.  The
multi-layering of government in states and localities has built up huge
bureaucracies and a culture of dependence on government for work. In areas
such as food-packaging, product liability, affirmative action and
education testing, clients and consumers are mollycoddled in ways that
astonish pink-tinted Europeans. The difference seems to be that the left
in America cannot build on this diffuse affection for the nanny-state;
even given favourable circumstances, it usually lacks the cohesion and
conviction to use them to its advantage.  The great divide

Are circumstances favourable now? Many think so. Turn first to
unemployment. Joblessness is now running at an extraordinary 4.8%, and
both the average duration of unemployment and the prevalence of long-term
structural unemployment have fallen sharply. In some states, such as
Minnesota, actual worker shortages are showing up. Workers therefore
should feel more secure, and should have more bargaining power to demand
higher wages.

This is a demand, moreover, which superficially seems justified. Between
1992 and the first quarter of 1997, corporate profits rose by 56% in real
terms; wages and salaries have grown much more slowly (see chart). Wages,
of course, are not necessarily the best gauge of higher living standards;
many workers have benefited from profits and share-price rises which have
fed through, for example, into their pension funds. Nor have rising
profits necessarily come at the expense of wages; the share of worker
compensation in GDP has barely moved since the 1980s. Yet there is a
growing perception that the economic boom may be, in the words of Stephen
Roach, the chief economist at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, a =93labour-crunch
recovery=94, achieved mostly by companies slashing labour costs in order to
restructure.

If workers truly feel that they have gained little from the recovery, wage
pressure should already be rising sharply. Yet, surprisingly, it has been
very slow to appear. It may be that workers understand that, in a global
economy, all companies cannot simply charge higher prices irrespective of
productivity. But what is far more likely is that, in the end, job
security means more to workers than higher wages.

In order to cut labour costs, some companies have been making increasing
use of part-time workers. This is another cause that has been taken up by
labour; it was the kernel of this summer=92s strike against United Parcel
Service (UPS). According to a recent report by the Economic Policy
Institute, a liberal think-tank, one-third of American workers are now in
so-called =93non-standard=94 jobs (part-time work, temping, day labour and
self-employment). These are typically less well-paid than full-time jobs,
less likely to provide health-care benefits or a pension, and often
precarious.

On the other hand, part-time work is flexible and convenient; many
Americans choose to do it to suit themselves. Besides, the proportion of
part-time jobs has actually been falling as the recovery continues.
Part-time workers have their grievances, certainly; but they are not the
rich source of resentment that labour imagines.

This leaves one last, large grievance: growing income inequalities. In
1995, the OECD reported that the gap between the lowest-and the
highest-paid workers in America was the widest among its 25 member-
countries; last year, the Census Bureau reported that that gap was the
widest recorded in America since the second world war, with the top 20% of
households swallowing 47% of the income (see chart above). There is no
counter-argument to these figures, except to say that almost everyone, in
fact, is growing a little richer. At the turn of the century, a comparable
gap between rich and poor spurred a fierce sense of confrontation and a
huge growth in union membership. Could it do so again?

As it happens, America=92s unions have had a good summer. The strike against
UPS brought, in the union=92s view, the first satisfactory labour outcome
for several years. Pay rises were gained, notably for part-time workers,
and the Teamsters=92 union preserved the pension scheme it wanted. As a
result, labour has gained a second wind, and it has moved to redouble the
recruitment drive it began two years ago under its new leader, John
Sweeney. A triumphalist press release issued for Labour Day lists the new
sectors to be converted: state employees, building workers,
strawberry-pickers. At last, labour feels the tide has swung in its
favour. Opinion polls now show that, during strikes, 44% of the public
would support unions and only 24% management; in 1984, the figures were
the other way round.

Nonetheless, even labour is well aware of its weaknesses. The UPS
settlement was in fact rather a sham, in which workers actually lost
ground on several fronts. Union membership is now only one-sixth of the
workforce, down from one-third in the 1950s. New recruitment is no longer
in huge, politically influential industries such as coal, steel and cars,
but in services, small enterprises or among workers (such as those
strawberry-pickers) who are unpoliticised and barely speak English.

It is also unclear that wage pressure and worker rage, even if they
materialise, will automatically work to the benefit of labour and the
political left. The American working man is an unpredictable creature. In
1980 he voted for Ronald Reagan, in 1992 he toyed with Ross Perot; in the
primaries of 1996, when he was allegedly sulky and frightened, he waved
his pitchfork for Pat Buchanan. His dislike of job- threatening and
=93spongeing=94 immigrants makes him ever-likely to back populists who oppose
free-trade pacts; but such figures may belong to any party, or even none
at all.  Rivals for labour=92s affections

In short, the economic conditions for a revival of the left are there, but
finely balanced. Oddly enough, it is in the political realm that the
left=92s leverage looks stronger. In recent years American politics has been
moving in shorter and shorter cycles as the electorate samples, like so
many flavours of ice cream, first one political philosophy and then
another. Reaganism gave way to Clintonism, Clintonism to Gingrichism; now
Gingrichism is a spent force, with a deeply unpopular leader and a tired,
fractious presence in Congress.

In truth, the American public was never sold on radical right-wingery. The
virtues of the Contract with America=97personal responsibility, reform,
lean-to-invisible government=97went along with a brutality and lack of
compassion that startled people. This set the pendulum swinging again. In
1993, health-care reform was mocked out of court as the last gasp of
overblown statism; this year, that florid old liberal Teddy Kennedy (in
partnership with Orrin Hatch, the most rigid of Republicans) pushed his
health-care scheme for children through Congress. In 1992, Jesse Jackson
was snubbed by Bill Clinton as irrelevant; now, once again, he is a leader
of mass-marches. As for Paul Wellstone, the scruffy radical from Minnesota
who is regularly mocked as the most =93embarrassingly liberal=94 man in the
Senate, he is so far encouraged by the change in the political climate
that he is thinking of running for president.

If he does so, he will be the third Democratic candidate hoping to enlist
labour in his cause; and there lies the true leverage of the left. The
AFL-CIO remains the only coherent, opinion-mobilising, fund-raising force
in the Democrats=92 pocket, and it knows it. In the last election cycle it
was already stirring, spending more than $20m in =93soft=94 donations to help
the party. In the next cycle, it will spend more. In the last election,
Bill Clinton, being unopposed in his party, did not need to suck up to the
unions; they had nowhere else to go. In his wake, every Democratic
candidate wants to make the unions his friends.

For months, Dick Gephardt, the House minority leader, has been setting the
pace in this department. He has positioned himself as labour=92s man, the
Teamster=92s son who is the unreconstructed, unClintonite voice of the
Democratic Party. He has argued against a welfare reform that
uncompromisingly requires the poor to work; against renewal of China=92s
most-favoured-nation trading status in disregard of its record on human
rights; and against a budget that cossets the rich with tax cuts while
cutting spending on the poor. Most notably, he threatens to obstruct every
Clinton move towards free trade by insisting on the right of Congress to
festoon trade deals with amendments desired by labour; or, better still,
to strangle them at birth.

At present, Mr Gephardt stands no chance of his party=92s nomination. The
first poll of the 2000 campaign finds that only 8% of Democratic primary
voters intend to support him. He is, in many ways, a peculiar figure: a
loner with no particular congressional following, whose run for president
in 1988 faded as disconcertingly as his famous eyebrows. His true danger
is that he is a rival for labour=92s favours with the Democratic
heir-apparent, Vice-President Al Gore; and that, in their rivalry, both
men will be tugged ever more hectically towards placating the left.

Mr Gore once seemed so unassailable that, like Mr Clinton, he could snub
labour and the left with impunity. These days, for many reasons, he looks
less confident. He has been disingenuous in explaining his fund-raising
for the party, a surprising stain on an almost unbearably upright
character. He is still (despite his jerky dancing at the Democratic
convention) perceived as wooden and humourless. But, more important, he
still feels the need to flatter labour by eagerly championing =93new
unionism=94 and workers=92 rights, despite his enormous lead in the polls.

There exists, in fact, an alternative opening to the left to be exploited.
Mr Clinton=92s brilliant success in moving his party to the right and
grabbing the middle ground has discomforted not only the unreconstructed
left=97fans of protectionism, big government and big spending=97but also more
thoughtful souls. A centrist and relentlessly pragmatic party, decked out
in Republican clothes, may be assured of political ascendancy for many
years. But to what end? The Democrats were once heroic and adventurous,
radical in pursuit of social justice. Next year=92s 30th anniversaries of
the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy will bring to
mind this party, which once fearlessly took on segregation, poverty and
the Mob=97and made at least some headway against them.

Could the Democrats offer something both credible and different from the
centrist consensus? The word =93liberal=94, a proven election-loser for 30
years, is still unspeakable in American politics. But the past 18 months
or so have seen the emergence of the word =93progressive=94 to replace it.
This means slightly different things to different groups: but all take
their inspiration from the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and
Woodrow Wilson, which scorned the corrupt interests of entrenched machines
and old money and let new-broom government take the lead as a radical
reforming force.

As it happens, Mr Clinton has a long connection with the progressive
tendency in his party. He emerged in 1992 as the darling of the Democratic
Leadership Council (DLC) that he had helped to create. Last year the DLC
produced a =93New Progressive Declaration=94, arguing that government should
be neither expanded nor dismantled, but should become a catalyst for
change: leading the fight against urban poverty, improving education by
setting national standards, =93empowering=94 citizens to manage their own
retirement. The Declaration seemed to sink without trace, but perhaps it
was not so. Mr Clinton cited Theodore Roosevelt in his state-of-the-union
message in January, and it seems that Mr Gore=97with his internationalist
economics and his yen for social activism=97may yet be the secret hope of
the progressive movement.

In sum, the new stirrings of strength on the left take two forms. One is
the impulse towards union revival and class warfare; the other is the
interventionist, but reasonable, progressive idea. Neither has a majority
following in the country, but nor should either be ignored. Over the next
two years, Mr Clinton and Mr Gore will need to keep a balance between the
two. What emerges may be a Democratic Party once again worthy of being
distinguished from the Republicans; or, alternatively, a backward-looking
party of resentment that stops the recovery in its tracks.

 =A9 Copyright 1997 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All Rights Reserved






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