How to End the New Class War and Save Democracy From the Managerial Elite | Michael Lind No theory, no promises, no morality, no amount January 22nd, 2019 of good will, no religion will restrain power…Only power restrains power. — James Burnham INTRODUCTION Michael Lind is a professor of practice at the LBJ School. A graduate of the Plan II Liberal Arts Honors Program and the Law School at the University of Texas with a master’s degree in international relations from Yale, Lind has previously taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins. He has been assistant to the director of the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs at the U.S. State Department and has been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New Republic and The National Interest. A co-founder of New America, along with Walter Mead, Sherle Schwenninger and Ted Halstead, Lind co-founded New America’s American strategy program, and served as policy director of its economic growth program. He is a former member of the boards of Fairvote and Economists for Peace and Security. Lind has published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The International Economy and The Financial Times. He is the author of more than a dozen books including several that were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. To be complete, representative democracy requires WHY DO I CARE? representative bureaucracy. — Michael Lind
I'm very interested in the arguments explored in Michael Lind’s new book. Ezra Klein is also coming out with his own take titled, “Why We’re Polarized,” which I have not read. It might make sense to have Ezra on the program as well, though I can’t say I’m particularly excited to read his book. In other words, I’m more predisposed towards the arguments made by Michael than those that Ezra and his ilk seem to be putting forward. I’m more inclined to be persuaded by the view that Americans are divided along class- cultural lines defined by powerful economic and professional realities than I am by the view that race, gender, sexuality, and other biologically conditioned categories and identities are to blame. I’ve never found the later arguments remotely compelling, and quite frankly, I’m relieved that the clamorous, moralizing minority has been silenced in the last year or two, making the atmosphere more conducive to candid and rational discussions about what has been happening in America over the last several years. Though I can’t say I’m on board with every assertion, conclusion, or remedy that Michael puts forward in his book, the overall thesis rings true. I think we see it all around us, not just in the US, but also in Europe, and I look forward to exploring the subject with Michael here today.
1
THREE REALMS OF POWER
The overall argument that I think Michael is making in the book is that “only power can check power.” Absent a compromise between the classes (defined along lines similar to those of the late
Culture 19th and early 20th century of labor vs. capital or working class vs. managerial class) embodied in a new democratic pluralist order there are only two possible outcomes according to Lind: 1) The domination of the working class by a neoliberal, technocratic elite or 2) the triumph of the working class over the elite by way of reliance on populist demagoguery (e.g. William Jennings Bryan, Donald Trump, etc.). Lind writes: “The alternative—the triumph of one class over the other, be it the overclass led by neoliberal technocrats or the working class led by populist demagogues— would be calamitous. A West dominated by technocratic neoliberalism would be a high-tech caste society. A West dominated by demagogic populism would be stagnant and corrupt. Given the weakness and disorganization of national working classes, in the absence of a new democratic
pluralism the most likely possibility is that today’s class war will come to an end when, in one Like? War Look Class What Does Western country after another, the managerial minority, with its near monopoly of wealth, political power, expertise, media influence and academic The old spectrum of left and right has given authority, completely and successfully represses the way to a new dichotomy in politics among numerically greater but politically weaker working- insiders and outsiders. — Michael Lind class majority.” Three Realms of Power — Michael writes that social power exists in three realms— government, the economy, and the culture: “Each of these three realms of social power is the site of class conflict— sometimes intense and sometimes contained by interclass compromises. All three realms of Western society today are fronts in the new class war.” I want to ask about the history of class war in this country and in Europe, but before we do, maybe it would help to ‘get clear’ on what it is
that we are talking about. Q: What does class war look like and what are the symptoms that you
Power Exists in Three Realms: Government, Economy, & & Economy, Government, Realms: inThree PowerExists are picking up on in making this diagnosis?
2 HISTORY OF CLASS CONFLICT & THE FIVE SCHOOLS
According to Lind, “the first class war of the The problem of classes is this: Class conflict is modern era had its origins in the growth of essential if freedom is to be preserved, because it industrial capitalism in the nineteenth and is the only barrier against class domination; yet twentieth centuries. In different Western class conflict, pursued to excess, may well destroy countries, industrialization proceeded at the underlying fabric of common principle which different rates and took different forms. But sustains free society. — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. everywhere the social challenges were similar. … In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, five major schools of thought debated the future of industrial society: liberalism, producerism, socialism, corporatism, and pluralism. … In
all its forms, (1) economic liberalism identifies human freedom with commercial transactions in markets, with the state limited to the role of enforcing contracts and perhaps providing minimal social insurance safety nets. Free market liberals tend to view national boundaries as unfortunate and anachronistic barriers to the free movement of capital and workers in a single global market
Liberalism economy. Capitalist and managerial elites in the West have often promoted versions of economic
liberalism, from the classical liberalism of the early nineteenth century to the globalist neoliberalism of today…. (2) Producerism is the belief that the economy should be structured by the state to maximize the numbers of self-employed family farmers, artisans, and small shopkeepers in society.
The moral ideal of this school is the self-sufficient citizen of a republic with a small-producer majority Producerism whose economic independence means that they cannot be intimidated or blackmailed by wealthy Corporatism
elites….(3) Socialists of various kinds—utopian, Christian, and Marxist—denounced capitalism and private property and proposed public ownership of industry and infrastructure….A third philosophy opposed to free market liberalism and state socialism alike, envisioned a harmonious society of
state-supervised but largely self-governing “corporations,” by which was meant entire economic Socialism sectors, not individual firms, rather like medieval guilds. The same term, (4) “corporatism,” is often
3 used for both democratic and dictatorial versions of this political tradition….The view of society as a community of self-organized and self-governing communities, under the supervision of a democratic government, is best described as (5) “pluralism,” the term used by the English pluralists of the early twentieth century, like Neville Figgis, F. W. Maitland, G. D. H. Cole, and Harold Laski, Pluralism and by their late-twentieth-century heirs, including Paul Hirst and David Marquand.
Five Schools — Q: What are the five major schools of thought that you identified in the book, and why are they important? (liberalism, producerism, socialism, corporatism, and pluralism) First vs. Second Class War? — Q: Why do you focus on “the modern era” (i.e. the period of the industrial revolution) as the analogue for today’s class war? Q: What do the two periods The evolution of managerialism in the West has have in common and what dynamics are similar replaced the distant and snobbish—but thankfully between the classes then and now? Q: Does it indifferent—bosses of the post-1945 years with a
matter that the role of the state is much bigger new “woke” corporate elite. — Michael Lind Pluralism of Democratic Breakdown
Old vs. NewClass War vs. Old now than it was then? Ending the First Class War — Q: How did the previous class war come to an end and how important were (1) the fear of revolution and (2) the fear of foreign invasion in incentivizing the country’s elite to push for compromise? BREAKDOWN OF DEMOCRATIC PLURAISM Timeline Lind writes: “Between the 1960s and the present, as declining fear of great-power conflict gradually reduced the incentives of Western elites to make concessions to Western working classes, the postwar system has been dismantled in a revolution from above that has promoted the material interests and intangible values of the college-educated minority of managers and professionals, who have succeeded old-fashioned bourgeois capitalists as the dominant elite. What has replaced
Kevin Phillips’ KevinPhillips’ democratic pluralism can be described as technocratic neoliberalism.”
4 Starting the Second Class War — Q: Can you take us through the transformation of the American political-economy from one of democratic pluralism dominated by a community of self-organized and self-governing communities to one of neoliberal technocracy, dominated by a small class of managerial capitalists and wealthy financiers operating through a thinly veiled layer of electoral politics? Neoliberal Democracy vs. Democratic Pluralism — Q: In the realm of politics and government, how have parties that were national federations of local, mass-membership organizations given way to parties controlled by donors and media consultants? Q: How have the powers of democratic national legislatures been usurped by, or delegated to, executive agencies, courts, or transnational bodies over which college-educated professionals have far more influence than the working-class majority, whether native- or foreign-born? Transnational Peace — Q: Isn’t part of the neoliberal vision about create a better, more peaceful world by breaking down national boundaries and eliminating the type of warfare that was such a destructive feature of the first half of the 20th century? Q: Isn’t this an admirable goal, or is your contention that what is relevant is not whether the aim is admirable but whether it is even possible to achieve? Culture War — You write that “local religious and civic watchdogs have lost power, often as a result of activism by judges born into the social elite who share their libertarian economic and social views with their university-educated peers.” Q: How are we able to measure this in order to determine (1) if it is true and (2) how extensive the change in power has been? Q: If true, how has this change in power or influence had a direct impact on the culture of the various communities in America? Q: Hasn’t much good also To be complete, representative come from this (i.e. addressing long-perpetuated class democracy requires representative advantages based on race or gender)? bureaucracy. — Michael Lind
5 POPULIST COUNTER-ATTACK According to Lind: “The technocratic neoliberal revolution from above, carried out in one Western nation after another by members of the ever more aggressive and powerful managerial elite, has provoked a populist backlash from below by the defensive and disempowered native working class, many of whom are nonwhite (a substantial minority of black and ethnic British voters supported Brexit, and in the US an estimated 29 percent of Latinos voted in 2016 for Trump). Large numbers of alienated working-class voters, realizing that the political systems of their nations are rigged and that mainstream parties will continue to ignore their interests and values, have found sometimes unlikely champions in demagogic populists like Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Marine Le Pen, and Matteo Salvini. For all their differences, these populist demagogues have launched similar counterattacks on dominant neoliberal establishments in all three realms of social power. In the realm of the economy, populists favor national restrictions on trade and immigration to shield workers from competing with imports and immigrants. In the realm of politics, populists denounce neoliberal parties and factions as corrupt and elitist. And in the realm of culture, populists denounce elite-promulgated multiculturalism and globalism, while deliberately flouting the norms of the “politically correct” etiquette that marks membership in the university-educated managerial Access to positions of power by members elite. Q: What are the hallmarks of populism? Q: What of the subordinate classes does not change the fact of domination; it only does populism reflect that seems so universal and changes the personnel. — Ralph Miliband timeless? Q: Are there any places in Europe or North America where populism is more likely to succeed than others? Q: Do you think members of this managerial elite are clueless when it comes to how much support Trump gets from Latino and Muslim communities? Q: Do you think this support reflects the strength of family values and economic interest over bigoted and racially tinged rhetoric by the President? Speech Police & Moralizing Elitists — One of the most insufferable features of the modern class war is the policing of speech that happens on the ideological left. We have seen this type of
6 intolerance on both sides of the political spectrum over the years (e.g. Republicans’ “patriotism policing” during the early Bush 43 administration), but today, the phenomenon appears to be exclusively a leftist one. Q: How do we explain this phenomenon of political correctness run amok? Q: What is this phenomenon really about? Q: How much of this is a deeply subconscious attempt to elevate oneself? Dehumanization of the Trump Voter — Something that feels altogether new during and after the last presidential election has been the dehumanization of the Trump voter. I think it’s fair to say that many in the managerial class were completely blindsided by Trump’s victory, first in the Republican primary, and then, in the general election. The reaction by those who were blindsided can be grouped into two, broad categories: (1) Those who sought to understand why Trump was elected, what signposts they had missed, and what faulty assumptions their predictive models contained AND (2) those who did not want to search for deeper explanations or challenge assumptions and simply reached for the easy answers provided to them by left-wing media outlets. The most dominant and simultaneously absurd conspiracy theory put forward by these “progressive” outlets was that Trump had conspired with Russian state actors in order to rig the American election. This theory, however, could not account for the obvious support Trump had among a core 40% or more of the American electorate. In order to explain this fact, this same group of incalcitrant conspiracists put forward an equally ridiculous theory that half the country consists of bigoted racists who hated Obama for his color and were now eager to elect the most white, racists, homophobic, bigoted hate-monger they could get their electoral hands on. Q: How has the Trump voter been “explained away” by the “managerial consensus” or “popular culture” in America? Q: How accurate or inaccurate have been the caricatures of the Trump voter? Q: What conclusions can we draw about our country from how Trump’s election has been processed, explained, and dealt with (e.g. the “witch hunt” to impeach him before enough evidence or proof was even available) Rational vs. Irrational — One of the consistent narratives put forward by people who self-identify as “progressive” is that most republican voters have been conned into voting against their economic
7 self-interest and that their electoral choices “are not rational.” Q: How true is this from an economic perspective? Q: Is it fair to characterize electoral choices based on cultural norms as ‘irrational’ simply because they don’t operate from a place of ‘reasoned, self-interest?’ Rise of Fascism — Q: What is the historical basis for claiming that Trump represents a fascist turn in American politics and that we are living during one of the most dangerous times in American history? Q: How fair are the characterizations of him as an authoritarian figure? Q: Is it fair to distinguish between Trump as a dangerous figure and his base, who voted him in? (i.e. how deep does this problem go or is it only “orange skin- deep”) Lorded Over — Q: What are we responding to that is so visceral when it comes to this elitist, managerial, virtue signaling, hypocritical power structure? Q: Is this about the power process, and the fact that more of us feel like we are being lorded over? Geographical Divides — Q: How is this class divided manifesting in geographical terms, and what are the positive feedback effects of this? Universal Basic Income — Q: What do you think of proposed solutions to this problem like UBI? Populist Overthrow — Q: Will populists in Europe and North America succeed in overthrowing and replacing technocratic neoliberalism? Class Nuance — Q: How do we get to the most accurate definition of class that doesn’t miss a large chunk of people like me, for instance, who were raised in immigrant families, but who are
8 financially successful, credentialed and whose parents are similarly credentialed and well-off? (e.g. I grew up with a really strong work ethic and conservative family values drilled into my head) Blue Wave? — Q: We are told that the nation’s demographics are not moving in Republicans’ favor, but are these characterizations based on very superficial, identarian distinctions that don’t actually hold? (i.e. do family values and a distrust of the state supersede identity politics?) Knowledge Economy — Q: What is the “knowledge economy and why do you believe that this construction is a myth? Immigration — Q: Don’t we need immigration partly to address the declining birthrates? Q: What about the benefits of introducing diversity into our citizenry and workforce Contemporary populism is a kind of convulsive autoimmune response by the body politic to the chronic by “renewing the blood” of our degenerative disease of oligarchy. — Michael Lind countrymen and women? Immigration — Q: What is the solution to this problem? Q: How can democratic pluralism be implemented in the West? Q: Will it have a harder time in some countries than others? Q: What will it look like in practice? Q: Will the managerial elite be brought to it kicking and screaming? (i.e. what will it take to get us there?) QUOTES & EXCERPTS The implicit theory of technocratic neoliberalism is that the US and other Western societies at this point are essentially classless societies in which the only significant barriers involve race and gender. The people at the top got there purely as a result of their own efforts, on the basis of their superior intellectual or academic skills. Many of these corporate managers, financiers, lawyers, accountants, engineers, foundation program officers, media elites, and academics do pretty much the same kind of work that people in their professions did half a century ago, adjusted for differences in technology and industrial organization. But we are supposed to believe that they are not just old-fashioned managers and professionals, but members of a new “creative class” and
9 “digital elite,” the “thinkpreneurs” and “thought leaders” of the “knowledge economy” who live in “brain hubs” (to use only a few of the flattering terms in the lexicon of overclass self-idolatry). … For technocratic neoliberalism, the goal is to ensure that there is the proper racial and gender balance within the overclass, the balance that presumably would result from a perfect meritocracy. If pure meritocracy does not yet exist, then a simulacrum will be created. But as the British socialist thinker Ralph Miliband put it, “access to positions of power by members of the subordinate classes does not change the fact of domination; it only changes the personnel.” … It is no coincidence that Reaganism-Clintonism and Thatcherism-Blairism flourished in an era of prolonged asset bubbles. For a time, it is possible for stock market booms and real estate bubbles to fund public services and redistribution while allowing the wealthy to keep most of their gains. But the financial industry is volatile and global innovation rents quickly disappear, as a result of lapsing patents, intellectual property theft, foreign success in indigenous innovation, and the commoditization of former cutting-edge industries. … The evolution of managerialism in the West has replaced the distant and snobbish—but thankfully indifferent—bosses of the post-1945 years with a new “woke” corporate elite. Under the cross-class settlement in the mid-twentieth-century West, once the whistle blew, the proletarian could leave the factory gate for the safety of a world that excluded the bosses, a world of working-class neighborhoods, churches, clubs, and taverns. Under technocratic neoliberalism, however, the boss class pursues the working class after the workday has ended, trying to snatch the unhealthy steak or soda from the worker’s plate, vilifying the theology of the worker’s church as a firing offense and possibly an illegal hate crime to be reported to the police, and denouncing the racy, prole-oriented tabloid Internet as “fake news” to be censored by the guardians of neoliberal orthodoxy and propriety. … My purpose is not to defend populist demagogy, which can be harmful and destructive without being totalitarian or traitorous. Contemporary populism is a kind of convulsive autoimmune response by the body politic to the chronic degenerative disease of oligarchy. The greatest threat to liberal democracy on both sides of the Atlantic is not its imminent overthrow by meme-manipulating masterminds in Moscow or by white nationalists who seek to create a Fourth Reich. The greatest threat to Western democracy is the gradual decay of North America and Europe under well- educated, well-mannered, and well-funded centrist neoliberal politicians into something like the regimes that have long been familiar in many Latin American countries and the American South, in which oppressive oligarchic rule provokes destructive populist revolts. Weimar Republic? No. Banana republic? Maybe. 10