COMMENTS: Toward a Tough-Minded Populism

...Without a clear line, mushy confusion can too easily be exploited by the opposition—and it will be exploited...

...During the last 15 years the major sources of rising costs in America have been military spending, oil-price and grainprice explosions, housing-price and medical-cost escalations...

...We are dealing with the fundamental fact that the postwar boom and the conditions that produced it are over...

...And with violence, repression...

...Really...

...It has been opposed to "big government...

...If the final decade of the 20th century promises to be a difficult one, if there is a limit to the pain that people will endure, then we are likely to see violence...

...We have had eight recessions since World War II...

...Hence, ultimately it must fail and the need for a new direction grow...

...Within a planning framework organized around regional semiautonomy, and based upon participation, community involvement, and control of inflation in the necessities of life, the over-arching themes and directions of economic management become self-evident: they are to manage economic affairs to put people to work to meet these priorities —and, one might add, to do so in ecologically sane ways...

...Several years ago conservatives realized this at a time of set-back in their own politics: difficult as it was (and as high as the short-term costs were) they broke with mushy attempts to adjust politics to early compromise and cautious interest-group brokering...

...Various groups, particularly among the religiously oriented, are beginning to understand the importance of such integrity, and are organizing themselves accordingly...

...I am not talking about "bioregionalism," though that idea certainly has a role to play...

...As a retired working woman in the Midwest recently put it: "We know that when the politicians want to put everyone to work in time of war they can do it easily...

...the last reached a record depth of 10.7 percent unemployment...

...An aggressive "populist" approach to each could be dramatized, were there a will to do so—as a matter not only of social 158 justice but of necessary politics...

...A considerably expanded conception of populism will, however, be required if there is to be a meaningful new politics—for, despite the popularity of the word, there are major obstacles standing in the way of a populist strategy...

...If participation is to be meaningful, there must also be citizen involvement in framing the economic strategy or plan for the community in which a firm exists and for the larger regional and national economy in which both live and die...

...We have neither the social-democratic tradition of those countries nor the cohesiveness of an island culture relatively recent in its departure from Oriental feudalism...

...Accordingly, the idea of regional public enterprise must be offered—for, again, it is no longer possible, I believe, merely to criticize the major corporations—and the model of regulation and antitrust does not speak to the larger requirements of planning...

...Production of mass-transit systems and solar collectors rather than nuclear reactors and gas guzzlers, for instance, is a logical planning outcome of such criteria...

...Paul and Percival Goodman's Communitas is still one of the best guides...

...Nor can a new progressive program be achieved without new political energies...

...Or they will be left to stand as isolated models representing an interesting "moment" in history— of significance to a few activists, but (except as a conversation piece) not to their 238 million fellow citizens...

...The policy most commonly urged by both parties—reducing the deficit—is also likely to reduce growth...

...economy will maintain sporadic upward movement...

...Such a course has the central advantage of maintaining principles—and thereby offering an appeal based both on moral clarity and a toughminded assessment of what it will take to achieve basic goals...

...This was quickly abandoned or, rather, overridden...

...A thematic capable of uniting the races against common enemies—one that is capable of withstanding the forthcoming intensification of racism as a strategy to divide and conquer when conservative politicians begin to get into trouble...

...The word "populist" will be degraded by both liberals and conservatives, and emptied of all content...

...It is relatively easy to develop models for community participation, planning, and cooperation within the framework of a larger regionalism...

...Without an overall plan supportive of decentralized, community-based enterprise, even the best experiments are likely to falter and then disappear...

...and more than double again for black teenagers...

...dominant in a world economy devastated by the conflicts of 1939-45...

...What is needed is truly a moral equivalent of war, and of the usual response to domestic violence that is war by another name...

...nor is there a serious political alliance between blacks and whites...

...And make no mistake about it: the issue is when, not "if," current relative price stability explodes...

...You can't beat somebody with nobody...

...There are other nations with small immigrant colored populations, but they are nothing like the United States...

...We have useful local experience and a reasonable intellectual tradition to draw upon...

...Nonetheless, it is still a useful precedent and concept—for if the large for-profit corporation cannot or will not participate in the building of a new economy, then there must be an alternative to it...

...It also may well be that such a vision and strategy is the only way in the coming period to develop enough political energy to transcend our current stalemates, and their sad, dangerous, and ultimately foolhardy domestic and international consequences...

...We are talking about a longer-term goal of rebuilding the structures needed to sustain, enhance, and encourage both successful economic management and a renewed experience of community...

...This brings us to a further difficulty, one also not easily wished away: the United States is not France, not West Germany, not Japan, and certainly not Sweden, Norway, Denmark, or Austria...

...No longer is the U.S...

...Ronald Reagan is right to point out that even his big defense budget is a smaller percentage of the GNP than that of many Democratic presidents—and this means less relative economic stimulus...

...To build the kind of fire in the belly that is needed to break loose from the politics of decay will ultimately require a different, powerful thematic...

...The control of inflation in sectors of fundamental importance to the average family is a principle that underscores a particular populist emphasis on what is important to produce, and what is important to keep within economic reach of the vast majority...

...However, consider that hundreds of community-based economic experiments have been wiped away by larger economic forces in the last decade: high interest rates, deep recession, declining markets, and failing local economies have all generated their casualties...

...For blacks it is not...

...Several issues are obvious and traditional: tax policy, military spending, corporate control...

...But the likelihood of even the most fully developed industrial policies reversing the trends in our economy is very slim...

...Self-evidently, a much more equitable distribution of resources than our present one is technically possible —even allowing for the current poor functioning of the economy...

...It offers a challenge to those institutions and corporations that stand in the way of such a program...

...We shall surely see many empty 159 "thematic" approaches to politics—to a politics of surface and rhetoric rather than substance and power...

...A major military buildup could do the job, of course, but even here there are difficulties: The $4 trillion economy is so large that it takes a gigantic and absolute military buildup to make a significant dent...

...We live at a dark moment of American political history: traditional liberalism is stymied...

...We are talking about 3,000 miles and a population that will be moving toward the 250 million and then the 275 million mark...

...This has consequences...

...And there is, finally, the failure of our present politics to deal with the expanding threat of nuclear war...

...What will it take to do it in time of peace...

...the real question is when, not if, the next recession will hit...

...Progressives have had no serious answer to inflation, yet it is of central concern to millions of people...

...Literally...

...Traditional liberal theory occasionally supported alterations in the underlying structure of economic power (for instance, it believed in helping establish co-ops...

...There is a second requirement that takes us beyond the traditional populist themes of equity, antielitism, and participation: the United States is the only advanced industrial nation in which the working class is fundamentally, not marginally, divided along racial lines...

...How, really, can there be participation in overall economic planning in a nation so big...

...and people like Richard Viguerie have offered full-blown political theories of conservative populism based on such themes...

...We are just about at the end, I believe, of the "soft-gloves" liberalism of the last decade—the political strategy that muffled militancy in the name of a moderate appeal to the middle...

...No longer are the major additional boosts of economic energy from the Korean and 156 Vietnam wars able to generate jobs and growth...

...Traditional progressive theory—at least as it has operated since the New Deal—has held that a set of liberal ideas and ideals could, through the force of political action, press the overarching corporate economy to achieve goals in the "public interest...

...The Reagan recession and temporary grain and oil gluts have moderated recent inflation, but the present situation is not stable...

...If planning is required to manage the modern economy—and I believe that it is, certainly if the trend toward leaving out increasing numbers of blue-collar workers and minorities is to be reversed —then populism must offer a longer-term vision that combines its historic themes of decentralization, antielitism, and antibigness with a model of economic planning designed to achieve its goals and values...

...We are, above all, a continent...

...160...

...157 There is a bullet that needs biting: historian William Appleman Williams and advocacy-planner Robert Goodman have put forward the challenging argument that ultimately we need to reconceptualize the nation as a commonwealth of semiautonomous regions...

...Even so-called economic improvements have often been costly—especially when rising real estate values have forced residents to move and thus eliminated the base of some local housing and various co-ops...

...Walter Mondale's decision—after the forceful liberal speeches of Cuomo and Jackson at the 1984 nominating convention—to cut back the Democratic tradition in the name of a "new realism" was instructive...

...III ULTIMATELY, THERE CANNOT BE a new direction without a political breakthrough...

...This means drawing a much sharper line between the interests of the vast majority, black and white, and the upper elites, corporations, and the military establishment...

...At the same time such a strategy could begin to develop a new theme centered around the priority of production for necessity use...

...A first requirement for those who are serious about a progressive alternative to "big government" is therefore some basic intellectual homework in this area...

...Ronald Reagan has dressed his own new tax package in "populist" garb...

...The first requirement is a structure that encourages —and is based upon—increasing participation for all...

...It is possible that the U.S...

...Each decade the average level of unemployment has increased—from 4.5 percent on average during the 1950s to 4.8 percent during the 1960s, to 6.2 percent during the 1970s, to 8 percent on average so far in the 1980s...

...Indeed, on its own, such an attack on bigness can easily play into the hands of extreme conservatives and reactionaries...

...Despite the Democratic party's current attempt to look the other way when challenged on social and racial issues, it is clearly a losing politics for the long run...

...Both because the idea is important in its own right and because there is no alternative, demagogic right-wing politics has an open field: if the "big government" issue has been exploited in part because government really is too big, then either we will continue to hack away at it in reactionary fashion—trying to cut down the services it offers and taxes it extracts...

...Traditional politics does not offer answers to any of these challenges—or what answers it offers are usually too little, too late...

...If the dangerous thrust of American foreign policy is toward intervention, particularly in Latin America, then we are likely to see death and protest, also followed by repression...

...and this, in my view, is only the beginning...

...Though it is not a strategy for the faint-hearted who can only function in the easier environment of "instant-gratification politics," it is the only approach likely to get us beyond the impasse presented by a dying liberalism and neoliberalism that are nuzzling ever closer to conservative ideas in the name of politics as usual...

...But to implement such plans requires a politics willing to take on the military contractors, the oil companies, the grain exporters, banks and insurance firms and developers, and the hospital-industrial complex...

...To deal with each of these problems over the coming decade will require a tough plan, including: military cutbacks, energy conservation and controls, grain reserves and export management, health-cost controls and alternative healthcare delivery systems (preferably under community control), and an expansion of the supply of lowand moderate-income housing...

...The central question is whether the values of the overall vision are met...

...Only a full-scale and coordinated economic , plan can put the economy into sustained high gear—and only one that has a dramatic new source of public support can overcome the political deadlocks that now stymie progress...

...Finally, it involves a politics designed to deprive the opposition of one of its most important issues: the crude linkage of inflation with social spending, especially for blacks...

...The development of a tough-minded populism based on a recognition of what it will take to realize and enhance fundamental values is a necessity in its own right...

...If there is neither an alternative economic strategy to deal with inflation nor an alternative, common political target for the anger that is building up among blue-collar and black Americans—when the next burst of price hikes hits, the right-wing attack on the poor, on labor, and on overall higher levels of economic functioning will intensify...

...While important gains have been achieved following this broad approach, it is now clearly facing major difficulties: the corporation and its economic allies have demonstrated their enormous "countervailing" power on virtually every front...

...I am suggesting that the only answer to the conundrum—it will not go away—is a long-term vision of how, specifically and concretely, this great nation might begin to be restructured into semiautonomous regional units capable of managing, under democratic control, the separate regional economies...

...Or we will have to make "big government" smaller...

...Historically, populism has stressed a sharp division between the haves and have-nots...

...nor are we likely to develop a supportive planning approach without self-conscious awareness of the need to transcend our current limited posture...

...Without a new source of inspiration, vision, and commitment, the prospects for regaining a progressive initiative are dim...

...but so, too, in many ways is traditional conservatism in the closing days of the Reagan administration...

...If this is so, then a serious populism—one that cares about both progressive and humane values and participation—had better begin to develop a truly regional long-term vision...

...It is conceivable— and necessary, I believe—that a new progressive politics will accentuate major themes and programs that would shift resources and power away from the top, but this alone does not answer the fundamental question...

...Furthermore, on its own terms, populism does not necessarily offer an answer to the deeper structural challenge at the corporate core of the political economy...

...At one point in American history a grass-roots populist conception of how to manage large economic enterprises on a regional basis was put forward—in the very early days of the TVA...

...That unit of scale smaller than a nation yet bigger than a state and sufficiently large to deal with overarching economic matters is a "region...

...And in so doing, finally, it defines goals and targets, politically, that inherently can help unite black and white in a common struggle...

...Much economic thought these days centers around "industrial policies" to help selected firms and sectors become more competitive...

...Another area, however, is not so obvious but nonetheless crucial: inflation is the issue right-wing politics and governments have historically used to beat down labor, attack social programs, and justify throwing millions of people out of work...

...But the regional problem has merely been broached...

...This brings us back to the role of the large corporation: we need to go beyond traditional ideas of regulation and antitrust...

...Nor will the conservative tight-money, cut-the-budget answer to inflation do...

...The issue transcends the economy, however, and it also transcends politics as usually conceived...

...Only a bold alternative has the chance of generating sufficient emotional power to achieve this goal...

...As was his fate...

...Now is the time to begin a dialogue about what a new populism would entail —one that is serious about values, but also hardheaded about what it takes to manage an advanced industrial economy...

...but it is doubtful that this will be achieved in more than marginal ways by the kinds of public policies now being considered...

...POPULIST IDEAS have the potential of transcending the limitations of traditional progressive thought in general and liberalism in particular...

...II THE CENTRAL QUESTION a serious progressive populism must answer is how it will deal with the overall problem of economic management and structure...

...The most important reason we call 7 percent unemployment a "recovery" is that, for white people, it is...

...However, it has had very little to say about fundamental changes in the role of the large corporation...

...No longer is there an internal domestic boost of investment from the pent-up demand (and savings) of that war...

...We have recently seen how neoconservative politics turns to subtle or not-so-subtle racism when in trouble: the Helms-Hunt Senate race in North Carolina was ugly...

...The easiest way to think about this initially is to expand a vision of what the existing regional-scale states might do if there were an appropriate strategy: California, Texas, Alaska, New York, all are large enough to be conceived as regional units capable of substantial self-management...

...The figures are roughly double for blacks...

...In the heart of Central Europe, Austria (population roughly 7.5 million) suggests what can be done by a much smaller "regional"-scale unit of economic governance and planning: its record on jobs, inflation, social programs, economic justice, and environmental balance is remarkable—even though it floats within the ups and downs of a larger, capitalist European market...

...We have almost no experience in this area...

...But even if such a politics succeeds in winning an election, it cannot offer solutions to the problems that beset us—economic, social, moral, military...

...nor about regional decentralization of the existing federal government, though that too might be a way station on the road to a new economic structure...

...We have garnered enough experience with co-ops, community development corporations, worker-management, worker-owned firms, and so on, to know that if there were a real program aimed at developing and extending this experience, it could offer both greater economic productivity and more democracy...

...q This article was written for "The New Populism: The Politics of Empowerment," a forthcoming book edited by Harry Boyte and Frank Riessman, to be published by Temple University Press in late 1986...

...Beyond this, a serious long-term populism would begin to introduce the ideal of full equality—not merely "equity" —as appropriate to the challenges of the coming century...

...The power of the corporation, it was urged, could be limited through regulation and/or breakup via antitrust activity, and the worst features of the economic system ameliorated through tax policy, social expenditures, minimum-wage legislation, the organization (and recognition) of trade unions, and through various health, safety, and environmental requirements...

...It is also a strategy aimed at avoiding the use of planned recession as the way to control inflation...

...But blacks are not well organized...

...Else it will end up as just one more effort to change the subject without facing the main question...

...Looking beyond the current "recovery," the longer trend is clearly ominous...

...and it has attacked elites and centralized power...

...In the first instance, populism is very easily focused in "antigovernment" ways—at a time when it is increasingly clear that unless a powerful strategy of government economic management is adopted, ever larger numbers of Americans will be left out of the economic process...