Jan 16, 2023·edited Jan 16, 2023Liked by John Ganz
"Beginning in the 1990s, and definitively since 2000, Republican and Democrat rule alternates on the narrowest of margins. Winning an election no longer involves appealing to a vast shifting centre but hinges on turnout and mobilization of a deeply but closely divided electorate.”
This is just not true though, right? Apparent not just last November but repeatedly over the past 8 or 16 years. I get that there has been much debate about this but it seems pretty settled now. A closely divided electorate could be a result of both parties doing a very good job at appealing to the center / undecided, even if the nature of those appeals are very different.
This is an interesting piece by you as usual, but having no desire to read the Riley-Brenner piece myself I was just struck that you quote them making multiple weird claims. Low interest rates are a form of political extraction? IDK.
I think you’re right that the NLR authors are over-stating the novelty of “political capitalism”, but I’m mainly struck by their minimizing of labor militancy in US history and the state’s frequent violent response to it. Nobody reads David Montgomery anymore or labor history in general? In 1919 over 20% of workers were on strike in a multitude of sectors and the state was deeply preoccupied with it. From the 1890s to the mid-1920s widespread militant class struggle in the US was, I thought, common knowledge among historians. The authors state, “working class politics…in the context of class struggle… has been a highly unusual occurrence in US history.” This is a profoundly bad premise on which to ground their argument.
This is great material, and in addition relates very well, particularly with the material about the Frankfurt School, to something that's been on my mind since Trump got elected. Some time in the late 1940's, I believe, Bertolt Brecht wrote a play called "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui." The, who is pretty good about the "taking care of the neighborhood" stuff play concerns a Chicago gangster, who decides to run for mayor of the city, and, to the surprise of all, wins. I guess, to paraphrase Marx, "History repeats itself, the first time as fantasy, and the second time as farce."
How I found out about this play, is way back, around 1970, I read a National Geographic article about East Germany. One of the photos was of an audience taking in this play in East Berlin. I forget now, at this long remove if the following was in the photo caption or the accompanying text. The author, after giving an even shorter capsule summary of the play than I did, that such a thing could never really happen in America. That was a hegemonic era, and now, 50 years on, we are in a "political capitalism" in which this sort of thing is no more than par for the course.
Ah, this is great! Thank you, also, for mentioning that Martin Jay piece--I'm doing a Frankfurt School course this semester and am trying to avoid the heavy-duty stuff in favor of their general audience articles, and this would make a really great addition.
My take on the New Left Review is that they seem themselves as providing analysis above the fray of electoral politics, and so take a special delight in bringing down "celebrity" figures and also stances embraced by the young left in America and England--Obama, Sanders, Corbyn, the idea that the some combined effort of Occupy and both Sanders campaigns succeeded in pushing Biden to the left. I don't always agree with the analysis, but this strikes me as a more or less worthwhile thing to do, since it's a position completely and totally unrepresented in the mainstream media.
My $0.02: return of these structures is a degradation of our globally dominant liberal power system that is being actively pushed by the post-Soviet authoritarians in partnership with an axis of a-holes.
Liberalism is corruptible for sure as we all are as humans. But when functional even at least partially, enables a dynamic that motivates far more people than illiberal ones dominated by violent leadership that is not bound by rule of law and fair play. Fundamentally, the nonviolent and creative types that make for a dynamic economy are not so motivated when mobsters can just steal your shit. It is a losing structure- so all authoritarians can do is try to corrupt our more functional system.
Just look how much more functional Ukraine is than Russia for example. We have juxtaposed a freshly minted liberal system in Ukraine highly motivated and operating like a well oiled machine. For example motivated Ukrainians sunk Russia’s Black Sea flagship with innovative use of drones to defeat its defense systems. Versus a far stronger and larger nation that treats its citizens as cannon fodder and sends them out with 30 year old rations if they’re lucky. They desert in droves.
"Beginning in the 1990s, and definitively since 2000, Republican and Democrat rule alternates on the narrowest of margins. Winning an election no longer involves appealing to a vast shifting centre but hinges on turnout and mobilization of a deeply but closely divided electorate.”
This is just not true though, right? Apparent not just last November but repeatedly over the past 8 or 16 years. I get that there has been much debate about this but it seems pretty settled now. A closely divided electorate could be a result of both parties doing a very good job at appealing to the center / undecided, even if the nature of those appeals are very different.
This is an interesting piece by you as usual, but having no desire to read the Riley-Brenner piece myself I was just struck that you quote them making multiple weird claims. Low interest rates are a form of political extraction? IDK.
I think you’re right that the NLR authors are over-stating the novelty of “political capitalism”, but I’m mainly struck by their minimizing of labor militancy in US history and the state’s frequent violent response to it. Nobody reads David Montgomery anymore or labor history in general? In 1919 over 20% of workers were on strike in a multitude of sectors and the state was deeply preoccupied with it. From the 1890s to the mid-1920s widespread militant class struggle in the US was, I thought, common knowledge among historians. The authors state, “working class politics…in the context of class struggle… has been a highly unusual occurrence in US history.” This is a profoundly bad premise on which to ground their argument.
This is great material, and in addition relates very well, particularly with the material about the Frankfurt School, to something that's been on my mind since Trump got elected. Some time in the late 1940's, I believe, Bertolt Brecht wrote a play called "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui." The, who is pretty good about the "taking care of the neighborhood" stuff play concerns a Chicago gangster, who decides to run for mayor of the city, and, to the surprise of all, wins. I guess, to paraphrase Marx, "History repeats itself, the first time as fantasy, and the second time as farce."
How I found out about this play, is way back, around 1970, I read a National Geographic article about East Germany. One of the photos was of an audience taking in this play in East Berlin. I forget now, at this long remove if the following was in the photo caption or the accompanying text. The author, after giving an even shorter capsule summary of the play than I did, that such a thing could never really happen in America. That was a hegemonic era, and now, 50 years on, we are in a "political capitalism" in which this sort of thing is no more than par for the course.
Ah, this is great! Thank you, also, for mentioning that Martin Jay piece--I'm doing a Frankfurt School course this semester and am trying to avoid the heavy-duty stuff in favor of their general audience articles, and this would make a really great addition.
My take on the New Left Review is that they seem themselves as providing analysis above the fray of electoral politics, and so take a special delight in bringing down "celebrity" figures and also stances embraced by the young left in America and England--Obama, Sanders, Corbyn, the idea that the some combined effort of Occupy and both Sanders campaigns succeeded in pushing Biden to the left. I don't always agree with the analysis, but this strikes me as a more or less worthwhile thing to do, since it's a position completely and totally unrepresented in the mainstream media.
Thanks for the enlightening post
My $0.02: return of these structures is a degradation of our globally dominant liberal power system that is being actively pushed by the post-Soviet authoritarians in partnership with an axis of a-holes.
Liberalism is corruptible for sure as we all are as humans. But when functional even at least partially, enables a dynamic that motivates far more people than illiberal ones dominated by violent leadership that is not bound by rule of law and fair play. Fundamentally, the nonviolent and creative types that make for a dynamic economy are not so motivated when mobsters can just steal your shit. It is a losing structure- so all authoritarians can do is try to corrupt our more functional system.
Just look how much more functional Ukraine is than Russia for example. We have juxtaposed a freshly minted liberal system in Ukraine highly motivated and operating like a well oiled machine. For example motivated Ukrainians sunk Russia’s Black Sea flagship with innovative use of drones to defeat its defense systems. Versus a far stronger and larger nation that treats its citizens as cannon fodder and sends them out with 30 year old rations if they’re lucky. They desert in droves.