"The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Metropolitan Elite" is a new book by Michael Lind, published earlier this year. Lind is a Cold War centrist liberal with a modest Social Democratic tint. The author is worried about the increasing polarization in American society under Trump. While his book is strictly speaking anti-Trump, Lind believes that the ruling managerial elite must meet the discontented populist voters at least halfway, establishing a new class compromise that would include the working class and the conservative religious groups, which are now mostly excluded from serious political influence. Thus, Lind admits that the populist "counter-revolution" is to a large extent fueled by real grievances and deep-seated structural problems, both in the United States and Western Europe (he doesn´t discuss "Eastern" Europe or the so-called Third World). Indeed, it wouldn´t surprise me if most Trump critics will simply dismiss Lind´s book as another piece of *pro*-Trump propaganda!
Lind´s ideal is the America of the New Deal and the early post-war decades. Due in large part to World War II and the Cold War, the new managerial elite (which was gradually replacing the old bourgeoisie) entered a class compromise with the working class. Mass membership parties, strong labor unions and organized religious groups played an important part in the compromise, as did local power-brokers of various kinds. He calls the system "democratic pluralism". I get the impression that this is Lind´s attempted synthesis between Social Democratic statism and a more decentralist communitarianism. He has a tendency to veer towards the latter, interpreting even the New Deal as a form of "pluralism" rather than as the US version of European Social Democratic statism. To make a long story somewhat shorter, the post-war settlement broke down after the fall of Communism and the establishment of neo-liberal globalism.
Today, the managerial elite (about 20% of the US population, not 1%) dominates a society increasingly geared towards a service economy with low-paid jobs, mass immigration of unskilled labor to fill these very positions, and an alienated working class electorate outside the "hubs". The global economy has led to massive deindustrialization in the United States, as employers prefer to place production in nations with low wages and no social benefits. I was surprised to learn that such a huge portion of the US economy consists of service jobs specifically tailored to the needs of the metropolitan elite - the stereotype that "privileged liberals" (and of course privileged conservatives) favor mass immigration cuz lawns and unmade beds isn´t very far from the truth! Meanwhile, the general culture has become both more individualistic and more "liberal". This, too, alienates the working class, which tends to be more family-oriented and socially conservative. As for political and economic decison-making, it´s almost exclusively in the hands of institutions which consist soleley of members of the metropolitan elite. Gone are the mass organization of yesterday which at least gave ordinary people *some* shot at influence.
What Trump did is hardly surprising, given the above. He pretends to give a voice to the excluded 80%. While Lind accuses the populists of being demagogues with a purely negative approach, I think it´s obvious that Trump very effectively tailored his program to the "positive" needs of the heartland population, with his blend of anti-immigration, anti-globalist, morally conservative and "productivist" positions. Indeed, what´s really astonishing is that Hillary Clinton could still win the popular vote! Lind attacks, even mocks, the idea that Trump is a "fascist" or that "the Russians" were responsible for his upset election victory in 2016. The Russiagate fiasco is obvious, but the more "sophisticated" Weimar narrative doesn´t work either. Weimar Republic, no? Banana republic, maybe! That´s one of the author´s better quips. What Lind fears is that the United States might become more like a typical Latin American nation, which goes through never-ending cycles of oligarchic and demagogic-populist rule.
One thing I happen to like about Lind is his near-cynical honesty about how politics *really* work. Since the last class compromise was triggered by a war and a great power stand-off, chances are that only another war and/or cold war will do the same. Presumably, this would be confrontation with China. Globalism must be abolished in favor of multilateral agreements between sovereign nation-states. American industry must return from abroad, back to the heartlands. America must also stop trying to impose its way of life and democratic system onto other nations. (Note the similarities between this and some aspects of Trump´s own foreign policy.) The main weakness of Lind´s program, I think, are his proposals for domestic change. They include a reformed ward system with more political power devolved to local units, wage-boards with employer representatives in the service sector, unions in basic industry, and more power to the conservative religious groups when deciding on cultural and educational issues. He also calls for a comprehensive deal on immigration, including an amnesty for illegal aliens already in the country, and a more regulated immigration after that point. Guest worker schemes should be abolished, so all immigrants actually allowed in will have the same rights as native workers.
Lind very explicitly say that the above program is intended as a compromise between the current managerial elite and the workers, in order to defeat the populists. He also counts on sections of the current elite to be opportunistic enough to switch sides. Somehow, I find all this very hard to believe. A "democratic pluralist" program might of course be implemented at some point (perhaps even by a born-again pluralist Donald Trump), but I strongly suspect it will just be a stopgap measure on the road to revolution (using that term broadly). If the end result will be a left-populist America, a right-populist ditto, disintegration in a race war, or a never-ending cycle of patrician and plebeian control, remains to be seen. But one thing, I think, is certain. At some point the current metropolitan elite will be excluded by the new class war...
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