Despite the global crisis triggered by neoliberal policies aka the “Washington Consensus” and the highly unpopular austerity measures proposed to fix this crisis, the arch nemesis of neoliberalism - socialism (or even its cousin social democracy) is not gaining currency. What we see instead, is the advancement of far-right nationalism in Europe and the US, and theocracy in the developing countries.
I cannot help but notice that far right nationalism succeeded because the "old left" abandoned its traditional social issues for neoliberalism. The January 9/16 issue of The Nation has a good analysis of the breakdown of the USSR. One of the themes that emerges from it is that the party nomenklatura embraced neoliberalism to justify "privatization" or public property grab from which they immensely benefited. Similar trends existed in other Soviet bloc countries as well. It seems, though that the second and third tier apparatchiks that formed the cadres of the post-Soviet "left" parties took the cue from their former bosses even if they did not benefit from privatization. It seems that they tried to appeal to the youngish technocrats and professionals who were absolutely infatuated with the free markets. That, however, did not win them many supporters among the intelligentsia, but lost them the support of most of the working class. Consequently, large segments of the working class became attracted to right wing nationalists (or theocrats in the developing countries) who, oddly enough, married the support for the welfare state with anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner bigotry. This, I presume, is why many folks of otherwise progressive disposition are irked each time welfare state is being mentioned. It is now part of the nationalist right agenda.
To explain this, it makes sense to revisit the thesis advanced some thirty years ago by two Hungarian sociologists Konrad and Szelenyi, arguing that the "intelligentsia" as they are called in Eastern Europe, or "technostructure" as Galbraith (following Veblen) called them here is a new social class that is separate from both the working class and the traditional bourgeoisie. It appears that the rise of this technocrat class may explain the ideological shift that occurred in the second half of the 20th century from socialism and social democracy to neoliberalism.
As a nascent force in the 1920s and 1930s, technocrats had elective affinity with ideological movements that recognized their status as unique contributors to the production process - as neither the traditional proles nor the traditional bourgeoisie, but rather as "captains of industry" or skilled technicians steering the economy toward greater rationality and productivity. For that reason, they embraced Keyenesiasim in the US, social democracy in Western Europe and socialism in Eastern Europe. However, by the 1960s the elective affinity between the technostructure and social democracy/socialism started to disintegrate because of the universal benefits that social democracy or socialism offered. Captains of industry ceased to be captains - they become functionaries, cogs in the bureaucratic machinery delivering standardized benefits to practically anyone, in a word, a little bit better paid proles.
The attractiveness of neoliberalism to the technocrat class is thus grounded in the inability of social democracy/socialism to provide the same level of service as it used to, that is, continue granting the social status and recognition that the technocrats crave. This resulted in the “legitimation crisis” of the 1970s, which prompted the technocrat class to look for alternatives.
Neoliberalism promised them a way out of this “legitimation crisis” - first by redefining technocrat functionaries as “entrepreneurs” and “innovators” and then by enabling public property grab aka privatization for which technocrats were uniquely situated as managers of the said property. The marriage of pecuniary, if not kleptocratic, and ideological dimensions that neoliberalism accorded may explain its tremendous popularity with the new technocrat class. The new technocrats do not just steal public property like common thieves or profiteer by sponging off the public treasury like common welfare queens - no, they are the valiant captains of industry again who, like Ayn Rand "heroes", bring entrepreneurship and creativity to economy and society sagging under the yoke of mediocrity, “collectivism” "government regulations" and "socialism."
If this analysis is correct, the technocrats (by which I mean engineers, lawyers, doctors, economists, experts, business managers and kindred professionals who manage the economy) - who form a separate social class in every respect - are unlikely to embrace the old ideologies of socialism or social democracy. Neoliberalism elevated them to the position of status and respectability again, and they are unlikely to abandon it, especially when many of them are downwardly mobile as as result of their own neoliberal medicine they prescribed to others. They still want to think of themselves as captains, even though they run the ship they were steering aground. Without their support, the only "organic intellectuals" the "old left" ideologies have are basically academics in marginalized departments of sociology or literary studies, while the laboring classes dumped them for nationalism and theocracy.
In sum, I do not think that comeback of the "old" left is likely. Neoliberalism of the technocrats and the nationalism or theocracy that currently attracts the working class can only be overcome by a new ideology that accomplishes what the "old" left in the 1920s and 1930s –one that will offer the promise of a better economic organization while elevating the social status of the class that steers that organization. This new ideology must combine the promise of superior productivity and technological advancement, or perhaps superior management of the economy, with ideological legitimation of both the new economic order and the social class champions it. I used the word "management" here because I think that what is urgently needed is not producing more crap but using the existing resources in a less wasteful, and more sustainable and equitable way. In other words, a management technique that optimizes the quality of life instead of cranking out more gadgets and stuff. My bet would be on some form of environmentalism/earth stewardship ideology that combines advanced technologies with the rational management of ecosystems and with the attainment of good life and collective security by all humans and non-humans alike.
PS (added April 3, 2013). A new UK study shows that there are actually seven social classes in the UK: the elite, establishes middle class, technical middle class, new affluent workers, traditional working class, emergent service workers, and precariat (or lumpenproletariat in the old marxist terminology). This is clearly influenced by Bourdieu's concept of class distinctions and it offers a finer classification of the group that I labeled "technostructure." However, to follow Bourdieu, many of the "classes" identified in the UL study are more appropriately called "class fractions" or subsets of a class. Thus, established middle class, technical middle class and new affluent workers are "fractions" of the class that I called technostructure. There are two unifying elements of this class: its relationship to the means of production (selling knowledge, which is distinct from both financial capital and labor) and ideological identity (which again sets them apart from capital owners and laborers). So with that in mind, it is more appropriate to speak of four classes: the elite, the tehchnostructure (with three class fractions), the working class, and lumpenproletariat. The latter should be viewed as a distinct class based on objective (relation to the means of production) and subjective (ideological affinity) factors. Unlike the working class, lumpenproletariat does not sell their labor power but rather exploits, by sponging off or extortion, the value produced by other classes (mostly working class). It also has its own cultural identity that distinguishes it from other classes.
PS (added April 3, 2013). A new UK study shows that there are actually seven social classes in the UK: the elite, establishes middle class, technical middle class, new affluent workers, traditional working class, emergent service workers, and precariat (or lumpenproletariat in the old marxist terminology). This is clearly influenced by Bourdieu's concept of class distinctions and it offers a finer classification of the group that I labeled "technostructure." However, to follow Bourdieu, many of the "classes" identified in the UL study are more appropriately called "class fractions" or subsets of a class. Thus, established middle class, technical middle class and new affluent workers are "fractions" of the class that I called technostructure. There are two unifying elements of this class: its relationship to the means of production (selling knowledge, which is distinct from both financial capital and labor) and ideological identity (which again sets them apart from capital owners and laborers). So with that in mind, it is more appropriate to speak of four classes: the elite, the tehchnostructure (with three class fractions), the working class, and lumpenproletariat. The latter should be viewed as a distinct class based on objective (relation to the means of production) and subjective (ideological affinity) factors. Unlike the working class, lumpenproletariat does not sell their labor power but rather exploits, by sponging off or extortion, the value produced by other classes (mostly working class). It also has its own cultural identity that distinguishes it from other classes.
Some people on lbo-talk http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/lbo-talk.html find it dismaying that opposition to the left-centre governments that presided over the austerity measures imposed by neoliberalism didn't move to the left.
ReplyDeleteIt is dismaying, to be sure, but hardly surprising. I believe there are significant sociological reasons for that - tectonic shifts in the social structure, so to speak. Emanuel Todd observing that "political consciousness" is some sort of faith and that when society as a whole has less need for faith (because the material comfort level is more equally spread) then both sides of the faith spectrum loose their support base." is certainly up to something on this - those Frenchies make darn good sociologists ;) .
More specifically, the last hundred or so years saw the rapid growth of the new social class - the "technostructure" (engineers, lawyers, doctors, managers, economists, etc.) as Veblen and Galbraith called them or the "intelligentsia" as they are known in Eastern Europe. This new social class - neither the proletariat nor the bourgeoisie as understood in the 19th century have different 'elective affinities" (to use Weber's term) as far as ideologies are concerned. They have little use for eschatology (a belief in redemption in the future) either religious or secular. BTW, that Marxism was a form of a secular eschatology was observed by Leszek Kolakowski. They are meritocrats who manage and make thing happen here an now, they have no use for heaven in the afterlife or socialism in some distant future. They need an ideology that legitimizes their role as managers and makers of things happen - and there is an elective affinity between this and the ideology of the free market aka neoliberalism. I wrote a bit more about it here if anyone is interested http://wsokol.blogspot.com/2012/01/day-after-neoliberalism.html .
It thus follows that both traditional faith and "old" left ideologies tend to lose their appeal in tandem, as Todd noted, since they have the same social cause - the rise of the new social class aka the technostructure. It therefore comes as no surprise that the "old left" parties - socialists, social democrats, communists and even labour - shifted their ideological weltanschauung to neoliberalism - they correctly sensed the tectonic shift in the social structure and the ideological landscape it produced, and adjusted accordingly. They might have left behind a few proles in the process but they correctly sensed that catering to the prole ideological preferences is like investing in typewriters in the age of computers. Some people still use them, to be sure, but most of the users are aspiring to computers (except a few old coots who cannot adapt and soon be dead anyway.)
Ditto for the working class. We have plenty of proles to be sure, but nobody wants to be one or, for that matter adopt an ideology that identifiers them as such. They all aspire to the "professional" status that will make them a part of the technostructure. So if the class to which these "wannabe professionals" aspire have elective affinity to neoliberal ideology of free market, this means that this ideology will be accepted by a very large people who have nothing to gain from this ideology but their upwardly mobile social status.
So if the left wants to be politically relevant again - by which I mean attracting some 40-60% of the voters - they must come with something different than old left ideologies glorifying the proletariat, an equivalent of a typewriter in the computer age, or direct action appealing mainly to a few young punks, an equivalent of the open source software. In other words, the 'new left" must come up with an ideological equivalent of Windows, or at least a Mac OS.
It is a bit lame to comment on one's own post, I suppose, but it came to mind when I read the excellent piece by Corey Robin:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/2012102284658379985.html
where he concluded:
"What Galbraith could not have foreseen - ensconced in the New Deal consensus as he was - was that that the real ceiling on social spending would be set not merely by the Republicans but also, and perhaps more fatally, by the Democrats.
Once upon a time, Republicans were tax collectors for the welfare state. Now, Democrats are the austerians of reactionary Keynesianism."
I like Robin's piece very much. However, what I would like to see in it is a look at the social forces that produced this shift. At this point, the piece leaves a lingering impression of simplistic Democrat bashing popular among the sclerotic Left. A far more informative approach would be to to look at the changes in the balance of class power in the US since the 1960s. My favored theme is, of course, the exponential growth of the technostructure - college educated professionals forming the cadres of Corporate America - and aligning themselves ideologically with the owners of capital rather than sellers of labor power. There are very liberal on the outside (civil rights, peace, community, environment, yada yada yada) but they are businessmen at heart - infatuated with entrepreneurship, result being financially successful, running their own businesses focused on the "results," efficiency, technology. If memory serves, David Harvey made a similar observation in his book "A Brief History of Neoliberalism."
I am not denying the constant push in that direction from real elites - the 1% with 8-digit incomes - but this has been a constant in the US politics. To explain the political sea change that Robin describes we need to link it to a change, not a constant. And if you look what big social change took place shortly before that political change - during the 1960s - you will the exponential growth of college graduates, who might have been hippies in their college years but became the technostructure when they got married and had mortgages to pay. Without an ideological shift in this rapidly growing social class - from social welfare liberalism to entrepreneurial libertarianism - the 1% real elite would not be able to gain ideological and political hegemony it now holds.