Dystopia and oblivion

 

Credit: Jesper Rautell Balle 

I linked to these articles previously, but I kind of feel like linking to them again. Blackpilled, much?

An unfamiliar world

Missing but wanted: Children

Be like the enemy

 

If you can´t beat ´em, join ´em. Or at least become more like them. Michael Lind argues that the United States (and the West more generally) can´t win the new Cold War...unless we become more like China. Not authoritarian, but a mixed economy with strong government involvement and an industrial base. 

Good luck with that in a world marked by demographic decline, lower IQ, peak oil and climate change... 

Cold War II 

Missing people

 

Credit: Steve Jurvetson

Soon enough, populations will collapse all over the world (outside Africa). What should be done about it? Michael Lind´s proposal is original: a regulated labor market, strictly legal immigration, and...higher wages. Any takers? 

Missing but wanted: Children

The fire next time: Our own study department!

 

Credit: Bottracker

Explains a thing or two. Note the suspicion that "climate change study programs" are really preserves of the non-Hispanic White middle class left, usually excluded from the broad rainbow coalition. An article by Michael Lind. 

The Left´s Campus Protest Scam

The Five Crises of the American Regime

"Left-Conservative" (?) author Michael Lind strikes again. I have previously linked to his articles on foreign policy and reviewed his book "The New Class War".

In the article linked below, published in the Jewish magazine Tablet, Lind tries to place the storming of the Capitol on January 6 (which he blames on Trump) in a broader context.

Lind holds both Republicans and Democrats responsible for the increased polarization, going all the way back to Newt Gingrich's term as Republican Speaker of the House and the GOP weaponization of impeachment during the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. More recently, there are the actions of the Democrats: the bizarre conspiracy theory that Trump is a Russian agent, the 2020 impeachment, and the BLM-ANTIFA riots, which Lind see as a Democratic provocation. So while Lind denies election fraud and sharply condemns Trump, he nevertheless believes that the Capitol breach is part of a much larger scenario.

Culturally, that context includes increasing anomie, rootlessness and restlessness. Lind identifies five long term crises of the US system, including multi-culturalism, unaccountable political elites, and a globalized economy destroying real jobs. He fears that the increase in male working class unemployment and poverty is a ticking time bomb. All over the world, restless young men form the backbone of terrorist and extremist movements (and crime gangs).

For Lind's proposed solutions (or lack of them), see my review of "The New Class War" elsewhere on this blog.

The Five Crises of the American Regime

Weimar republic or banana republic?

"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...  

The end of American Empire

Time to link to “The National Interest” again. Michael Lind explains why the age of American Empire is over. The article is quite good, but it does have a few peculiar blind spots. For instance, it hardly mentions Russia. Nor does climate change exist in Lind´s universe. And yet, climate change will upset the geopolitical apple cards even more, for instance by making huge swaths of the Arctic Sea ice free. Still, a good introduction to the new world situation. 

Can America share its superpower status?

The Administration´s promises have been kept

Another Michael Lind extravaganza, this time in defense of US president William McKinley. Contains a lot of interesting side points I haven´t seen before, such as attempts by liberal US historians to paint Andrew Jackson (!) as a "progressive", or claims from the same quarters that Woodrow Wilson was very different from McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt.

Eh, come again? I noticed years ago that Americans have a weird view of their own history, but clearly I didn´t know half of it!

Lind also does a good job debunking the libertarian-conservative-isolationist idea that America was once a glorious non-interventionist republic...from sea to shining sea, on land grabbed from the Indians, with excellent ports and territorial designs of a distinctly geo-political nature on Mexico, Alaska and the Caribbean. 

Quite long article (the link goes to its first page) but well worth reading!

Bringing back McKinley

Ahem, why wasn´t this published in a far left magazine?

Old elitist goes populist, wants to avoid tar and feathers?

Why was this article by Michael Lind (see link below) published in Henry Kissinger´s and Irving Kristol´s magazine "The National Interest", rather than in some left-wing radical journal?

Oh, that´s right, the leftists support the old elites attacked in the article…

They clearly changed something in the matrix.

The Deep State is No Supervillain

Geo-economics in the age of Trump

The link below goes to an extremely interesting article by Michael Lind titled "The Return of Geoeconomics". It speaks for itself, but here is a short summary…

"Free trade" is a sham, or at the very least a temporary anomaly. Neither the British Empire nor the United States were for "free trade" when their industry was still weak. Only later did these imperial powers start to promote it - since by that time they could dominate the world market and turn any competitor into a producer of cheap raw material for their advanced economies.

The United States would never have become a great power if it had heeded Adam Smith´s advice and followed a free trade policy. Alexander Hamilton´s protectionist course was the right one. Friedrich List in Germany was also right.

When an empire becomes globally dominant, there is a temptation among the financial elites in particular to stop promoting de facto nationalism in favor of *actual* free trade. The financial elite is replenished by former manufacturers. This weakens the imperial superpower. The US has progressively weakened its position in this manner, in latter years by lucrative trade with China. In reality, this has mostly benefitted the Chinese.

Two strategies are possible for the United States in the present situation. One is to regroup and create a smaller Western-dominated free trade bloc by excluding China. This was Barack Obama´s strategy to some extent. The other is full nationalism. This is Donald Trump´s strategy. Trump is harking back to Richard Nixon.

The Obama strategy won´t work due to opposition from India. Why should India accept being a subordinate producer of cheap goods in a US-dominated global bloc? Therefore, the Nixon-Trump strategy is the best one.

"Realism" in foreign policy cannot be divorced from economic considerations. There is a direct connection between diplomacy, military security and the economy.

Empires which don´t see the above will fall. The British Empire is a case in point. The United States might be next.

The above was recently published in "The National Interest", previously a Neo-Con publication!

The Return of Geo-economics