Paradigm Lost

The BP failure to stop the bleeding of the earth in the Gulf is another sign that recent paradigm of the modern American economy and politics has exhausted itself. When I started this blog about a year and a half ago, I wrote that the age of Reagan was finally over with the election of Barack Obama. At that point, however, I concurred with Tom Friedman that our society may have become too atomized to reach overarching solutions to major economic and environmental problems. The desire of the Left for Obama to be a reincarnation of FDR was limited not only by the President's radical moderate temperment but also by the reality of the $10 trillion debt George W. Bush left behind that hampered any radical overhaul of the economy. What was important I suggested was Barack Obama's command of the airpace of our political language, which will shape how we view things in the years to come.

The intense reaction to the election of President Obama has given rise to a new type of libertarian Jacobinism, which under the guise of constitutionalism actually attacks the very foundation of the country. In my lifetime, this is the first time a major political party and its front groups actually engaged in sedition. This is not unusual in past American history, which saw rhetorical clashes as vicious and heated as those today. But what is unique is the willful refusal to ignore all reality-based thinking--whether it's the facts of recent major legislation, the dire shape of the economy or even the simple reality that 98% of America got a tax break. In the new meta-history of today's reaction is a conspiracy that actually challenges settled notions about the separation of church and state, the importance of the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act. The nostalgia of a white-dominated society with lassez-faire capitalism seems only to be embraced by a class of people, who either got enormously wealthy during the 1980s and 1990s, or those who enjoy government pensions and social security. Their government entitlement programs were deserved because the government was theirs.

There are two major social movements that have altered society in my lifetime as an adult--the gay rights movement and the environmental movement. On gay rights, the reaction is in its death throes. The abandonment of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is literally months away despite the religious rights warning about servicemen being fellated while asleep at night or a whole armed force infected by HIV. The lunacy of the attacks at this stage are only symptomatic of the last, hysterical and failed attempts to block it. The only thing left for the gay movement is to procure the right to marriage, which will come sooner rather than later. Whether it will be the Prop 8 trial that finally secures gays this right or simply the tolerance of the young toward gays, it's inevitable. This is a long way from when at my college two lonely students met to form a gay organization, while the rest of the student body hid in the bushes to see who actually would come.

The environmental movement is built on a more sturdy political foundation starting with Theodore Roosevelt and the works of pioneers like John Muir and others. However, for a generation it has been forced to fight a rearguard action, despite developing a great body of scientific work to substantiate their claims about everything from climate change to routine environmental degradation. Most importantly, the assimilation by a younger generation of environmental values and an appreciation of wildlife has been revolutionary. ( Colleagues of mine have expressed the wish that the same type of education had been done on democracy and human rights.) Writing about Bill McKibben's Eaarth. I noted my astonishment that Americans favored the environment over economic growth during the Carter Administration. I am now more astonished that the Gallup Poll noted last week that we're now back to that position with a majority of Americans again favoring the environment over economic growth.

Rather than focusing on the failures of the George W. Bush administration, Francis Fukuyama noted the increasing frequency of catastrophes with which government now deal. He wrote in 2008 Blindside: How to Anticipate Forcing Events and Wild Cards in Global Politics. Whether it's 9/11, Katrina, or a rogue North Korea, governments in the 21st century are faced with catastrophic events for which they are unable to cope or anticipate. All of these events, including the global financial meltdown, seem understandable in reflection but not as they are happening. As we saw with the unprecedented expansion of the executive branch under George W and its continuation under Barack Obama, the country does not have an option in this regard, despite all the calls for small government like those by Bobby Jindal, who then cries for more federal assistance and a Nation Plan to deal with such oil disasters.

While there are shards of hope running through many of the developments stimulated by our current Administration, the wholesale distrust of all our institutions, as we know from history, is a recipe for the rise of authoritarianism or totalitarian impulses. The desire to have control and to have stability and order in an uncontrollable world is deep within humans and is successfully exploited by the para-fascists among us. I would submit it is one of the driving forces behind the rise of political religious fundamentalism in the world today. You can no longer promise a utopia on earth but you can offer salvation in the world beyond. This way you have no obligation to have any social policies that benefit the society at large. The day of utopia is perpetually postponed until the end-time.

One of the accomplices in global fundamentalism is the world of business. In a way, the term Islamofacism is appropriate to what we see in the Middle East, particularly in Iran. Even Al Qaeda has no objections to free markets and business enterprises. In fact, it thrives on its own entrepeneurial spirit. The same applies to our own fundamentalist Christians, who,along with Glenn Beck, decry a social gospel but elevate the accumulation of wealth and material goods through the free market. And in looking at the past history of fascism both in Italy and Germany, the state's partner were large corporations, who have survived to this day as manufacturing companies, the auto industry and the pharmaceutical industry.

But this past is not likely to become our reality. If Obama can not be FDR and implement the tool-kit of the Left to solve our current crisis, the right can not retreat to some 1930s or even 1980s past. As horrific as the Gulf Coast disaster is, the image of the great vaunted private sector has been irreparably damaged. Apologists for the free market approaches of the past generation might slide over the fact that corporations did not create a single job in 10 years or pay taxes but they always could claim that the private sector always did things better than the government. This is tougher to argue when Americans want the government to dramatically intervene to prevent further destruction by BP. With the orgy of greed on Wall Street, there is a natural populist reaction against large corporations and their ethics of plunder and looting.

It seems to me the rhetorical stance of the teabaggers and Republicans is losing almost every argument and is becoming ghettoized in terms of the applicability of their concepts to dealing with the present and future issues we face. While AEI has now declared that the future will be fought between Big Government and Free Enterprise, I seriously doubt that any of the concepts of the past generation will survive the test of time. I also don't believe the language of the progressives will have much durability either. Here , it's less to do with the soundness of the ideas proposed than the reality of the nature of who holds power in our society.

I don't mean to suggest that there will not be some knee-jerk reaction in our mid-term elections. But it's quite clear that the Republicans are totally devoid of any real ideas that can actually benefit the society at large or , for that matter, their own private interest groups. A prime example, we saw, in the healthcare reform debate. While Republicans were funded to the gills by the insurance industry, industry wonks were meeting and outlining how the industry was no in a death spiral because they using an antiquated business model. If health care reform had not passed, the industry would literally implode in a few years. The irony would have been a defeat of healthcare reform and the business funding the Republicans going bankrupt within 3-4 years time.

I've written that the United States must make serious structural changes if it is going to have a sustainable economy in the future. What Barack Obama has done is give a lease of life to our auto industry, banking sector and the health insurance industry and put down seed money on alternative energy sources. But that is obviously not enough. I don't foresee how we can change overnight without dire economic consequences from an economy built on consumption to one of production. However, we are going to have to think our way to that future.

Francis Fukuyama also wrote a very perceptive book in the 1990s Trust: the Social Virtures and the Creation of Prosperity, which examines how a society's trust in its basic institutions fosters the development of an economy. At that time he contrasted our own civil society with the weaknesses in other countries such as Latin America. Unfortunately, we may have to re-read his book as a warning to where we are going in terms of an erosion in the rtust within our own society and how that can lead to our de-development.

The 1980s and 1990s is so past. Look at the attempts to play Gotcha politics on the Obama Administration. The recent attempt is the minor flap over Clinton approaching Joe Sestak over a job that would make him skip the Senate primary in Pennsylvania. Conservatives led by Rush Limbaugh, Liz Cheney and the rest are in high dungeon. Rep. Issa claims this is an impeachable offense. We have all seen this playbook before and we have all seen the disasterous consequences this type of nonsense creates. All the old games are being applied as if we are in a prosperous time and have the luxury of being concerned about such matters. It's clear to me that if the Republicans take back the House, their only idea is to impeach President Obama and it doesn't matter on what basis.

If that should happen, the United States stops being a major country. Full stop. Impeach a war-time President during a Depression and the first African-American in front of the whole world. Friend or foe will have to conclude that America simply is not a serious country. The same goes with the election of Sarah Palin. No self-respecting ally could countenance cooperation with us at any level. They would politely receive American diplomats out of old times sakes but have to ignore virtually anything we suggested or said.

Percolating within the teabagger reaction is the old Republican bugaboo--isolationism. They have not been able to articulate this or realize that their libertarian allies are opposed to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. What George W actually implemented was a type of unilateralism, which would satisfy nativists and isolationists, but has no viable place in a world where problems are global. But that isolationism can be a tool to examine the size of our military/terrorist complex and its negative effects on our deficit. Here, we are on autopilot until the next crisis-which will be a true policy of dealing with our deficit without destroying every last vestige of our social system.

One of the issues systems analysts warn us about is that dismanting a complex system eliminates its essence and generates a series of unintended consequences which are difficult to reverse. I have written how Thomas Franks perceptively analyzed how the Republican plan to privatize social security would demolish that program because it would cost trillions to put it back together. While that is the intent of the free market advocates, the consequences to our political economy would be horrendous and there will not be a free market solution to the outcome.

At the present, President Obama is basically in the position of buttressing aging institutions so that we can move forward in the future. But the new paradigm has not yet evolved. It is likely to include very localized solutions to a number of problems, including education, and larger national programs to counter catastrophes. While environmentalists desire global solutions for the urgent issues of climate change, it's more likely that measures will adopted by smaller governmental units to mitigate the inevitable effects of the oncoming enviromental disasters. What will be the conflict, it seems to me, is the fight between too big too fail and smaller, more adaptable strategies to deal with everything from war to energy production to banking. The fate of very large structures seems to me in question.

We have to prepare for worst case scenarios. I envision that we will see emerge in the not too distant future an substantial underground economy in goods and services based on the personal surpluses of everything from CDs, books, art, cars and household appliances. I have even seen in Pennsylvania the development of a local barter economy in areas that are depressed. Luckily,the United States after decades of conspicuous consumption has consumer goods to spare. I would hope someday soon that voices would be heard from the financial and baking sector concerning their social responsibility. I shared the President's naivete that the banking sector once bailed out by the American tax payer would actually modify its approaches to mortgage lending and small business loans. Instead, the sector declared war against the American tax-payer.

What has been missing in our domestic debate is the rather unique phenomenon of American firms relocating overseas to avoid anyone's taxes. After becoming a global company through defense contracts, Halliburton is no longer American but a Dubai-based firm. All the companies involved in the BP Gulf disaster are either based in the Marshall Islands or Switzerland, although the contractors like Deepwater Horzion all began their history as American firms. The same applies to someone like Fox News, which now is owned by a Dubai-based entity. Yet, the teabaggers support these companies over the American government. Look at Rand Paul criticizing Obama for being "anti-American" when he slammed British Petroleum's response to the oil spill.

What is likely to emerge in the final days of reaction will be a new debate about freedom. For the past several years, Americans have experienced the dreadful impact of private interests on their personal lives and are aware that non-governmental entities can be just a threat to personal freedom as the government. What Americans have reacted against is the perceived ineffectual response of the government to complicated problems. Only the 18% of Americans, who identify with the teabaggers, believe that government is the greater threat to their liberties. The irony is that this segment of the population benefits from things put into place during the last Great Depression such as FDIC, social security, and later Medicare and military pensions.

The Founding Fathers were prophetic in their skepticism that private property brought happiness. For that reason, they edited out private property and substituted the pursuit of happiness. What may emerge in the future is a reconsideration of the life worth living and a denigration of wealth as a desired goal. While the United States remains remarkably wealthy compared to the rest of the world, the trauma of the last few years can stimulate Americans to consider what they value the most. There will remain the short-term reaction of a sector that wants to retreat to a mythical past but there will emerge new thinkers articulating the greater good. I suspect most of these ideas will not come directly from the political arena but from other disciplines. The problem in developing the next paradigm will be to articulate how it will emerge in practice.