By Way of a Beginning

...How does all this relate to our topic of social breakdown...

...But lest you start worrying about his future, there is no need: places are waiting for him on corporate boards and right-wing think tanks, and in a pinch the New Criterion might add him to its board...

...We use it to indicate observations and foreboding: things are coming apart, values are losing their grip, some problems seem to be intractable...

...There's a sense of malaise, an atmosphere of alarm and anxiety...

...In earlier centuries a peasant might not even have known about the luxuries enjoyed by the king's court or might have regarded this as the "natural" order of things...

...Here is the Mexican writer Octavio Paz in his Nobel Prize speech: [T]he triumph of the market economy (a triumph that is owed to its adversary's default) cannot be only a cause for joy...

...It is a problem for which a solution can be approached only through a linkage of major social programs, systematically introduced and sustained over a long period of time...

...The market obeys whatever force is in command...

...You don't have to be a genius to know SPRING • 1991 • 165 Social Breakdown there's something seriously wrong...

...But I think it can be argued plausibly that the Reaganite view of society has been a strong catalyst in behalf of this process...

...Social breakdown is an imprecise term, but still a useful one...

...it by no means removes the need for a larger socialist perspective...

...The prescription for "capitalism with a (somewhat) human face" is by no means enough...

...Various forms of anomie can also be encountered in the white middle class, among students and even in the business world...

...When government does intervene, as with the drug problem, it is increasingly in search of a quick fix, a dramatic gesture that will reach television — "the war" against crime, "the war" against drugs, "the war" against AIDS...

...At the present moment there isn't the faintest sign any such (or equivalent) measures are being considered either by the Bush administration or what passes for the Democratic opposition (which has lost the ability to distinguish between pragmatism and pusillanimity...

...What, to start with, is the difference between social breakdown and cyclical economic crisis...

...That is very simply put, but for the moment it will do—others will render it more subtle in future issues...

...How many such "wars" do we have going (in addition to the real one...

...166 • DISSENT Social Breakdown Paz might have added that within those "islands of abundance" located in "the ocean of universal misery" there are also overflowing lakes of "particular misery...

...If you need more objective signs, you'll find an anthology of them in this issue of Dissent...

...In its approach to the drug "war," the Bush administration mimicked the style and substance of a television "special," with its quick once-over and dramatic sound effects...

...The rates for homicide and violent crime are four to ten times higher in the United States than in Western European countries and three times higher than in Canada...

...This means regulating the banks, keeping up the infrastructure and pushing technological innovation...

...One sign of this breakdown is that we seem to have lost any clear consensus as to what constitutes a social problem...

...As a mechanism the market is efficient, but like all mechanisms it lacks conscience and compassion...

...Getting the government off our backs" became Reaganite code words for a new social arrangement in which the business ethic of caveat emptor was transformed into the political ethic of caveat civis, let the citizen beware...

...No doubt it has been present in all societies, but there seems reason to believe that it is especially notable in modern industrial societies...

...Social decay—that suggests a process too slow...

...The economy collapsed, the social consequences were devastating...

...But at the same time Reaganism advanced a set of values—extreme possessive individualism, open sanction for acquisitiveness and greed, sustained contempt for the welfare state, blunt hostility to trade unions—that are not workable for any length of time in a modern industrial society...

...They don't stop to say—it seems obvious — that, whatever the efficiencies attributed to the market, it also constitutes a somewhat fictitious entity whenever the word "free" is put before it, a figment, that is, of ideology...

...He locates in all societies a conscience collective, an ensemble of "beliefs and sentiments" shared by most of its members, even by those who declare themselves to be its opponents...

...Serious people, not only of the left, wondered whether the capitalist system could survive...

...The Bush administration is allergic to thought, sometimes to speech as well...

...But aren't you advancing as solutions the same old liberal proposals...

...Let me quote a few sentences from an as-yet-unpublished book by our colleague Bogdan Denitch: Capitalism needs to be regulated to save it from its own built-in mistakes [and excesses...

...Now, this social phenomenon is not new (nor is my description of it...

...You have only to take a walk...

...at whatever cost to its victims, the economy finds paths to self-correction...

...We wondered which of these phrases, none of them "scientific" in nature, would best apply to the current situation in the United States...

...And, even then, we cannot be certain...

...Social decline—too mild...

...It appointed as the generalissimo of this "war" the right-wing windbag William Bennett...

...About the social-psychological consequences of the changes in modern society, useful concepts can still be found in the work of the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim...

...But it is not at all inevitable that little or nothing be done—as is the case in the United States—to ease the lot of workers and other people who suffer the consequences of these changes...

...Such groups or individuals drop out of the more-or-less shared system of values...

...But today a resident of the urban ghetto knows perfectly well what luxuries are enjoyed by Donald Trump and Ivan Boesky (even in bankruptcy and jail...

...In the United States, as in all advanced economies, the market is intertwined with governmental agencies and constrained by regulations...

...We call this, in our shorthand, the welfare state, a modification of capitalism in behalf of both its survival and a measure of humaneness in its treatment of the deprived and oppressed...

...We will have to recognize that whatever its uses in the production of goods and the setting of prices, it has little to say about the moral and social lives of men and women...

...And, meanwhile, the very possibility of serious thinking about social problems, to say nothing of concerted actions, grows dimmer...

...And as long as we have administrations in Washington that because of either ideological fanaticism (Reagan) or mindlessness (Bush) or both (add a touch of stupidity too), refuse to recognize the necessity of social policy in a modern society, it seems likely that the process of breakdown—or, if you prefer, decline—will continue...

...The American dream of success or the ethic of possessive individualism might be examples...

...But they do not necessarily find a coherent substitute...

...And here are a few sentences from James Tobin, the Nobel Prize economist and a good traditional liberal, writing in the Spring 1990 Dissent: Economic theory has always recognized externalities as exceptions to Invisible Hand propositions [that is, the workings of the market...

...Indeed, many of the signs of social breakdown are to be noticed in pockets and segments of the society barely touched by the market...

...I find it interesting that many of the contributors to this issue of Dissent conclude by remarking that "the market" (which has displaced the Almighty as our reigning deity) is incapable of dealing with the deep-seated social problems they describe...

...Roosevelt's New Deal saved American capitalism by bringing in bank regulations, Keynesian pump priming, huge public projects . . . against the almost unanimous opinion of the capitalist class...

...One source of "antisocial" behavior among some young black males is their steady exposure, via the media, to the acclaimed riches and pleasures of American society—an exposure that may induce feelings of anger and bitterness insofar as they recognize that they are mostly barred from such riches and pleasures...

...second, that there be improvements in "character," especially the character of the poor and oppressed...

...Much of the money allocated for this "war" went into Rambo-style efforts to prevent drugs from crossing our borders—a doomed effort from the start—rather than to education and therapy, which might bring some results...

...Externalities are nonmarket effects of economic activities on other economic activities...

...The result has been a sharp increase in social disorder and 168 • DISSENT Social Breakdown malaise—with some of its symptoms named Michael Milken, Al Sharpton, Michael Deaver, the Keating Five (feel free to add to the list...

...All three of these will reduce profits of some players at a given time, all three require an interventionist government...

...What James Tobin says here about the effects on "other economic activities" holds still more for the noneconomic spheres of life—health, environment, education, and so on...

...Bennett is an example of the new code of American capitalism: nothing succeeds like failure—tough talk followed by personal gain...

...The S&L scam, the carryings on of robber barons like the Boeskys and Milkens— these do occur, very much, within the market, exploited or rigged in behalf of enormous thievery, and, indeed, enabled by the values of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware...

...But for the immediate moment, it is what is urgently needed...

...For it's not only that television copies the worst of our society, the worst of our society copies television...

...In the writings of Tom Wolfe, a writer I don't admire, there are not only some keen observations pointing to the malaise but also coarse symptoms of the malaise itself...

...q SPRING • 1991 • 169...

...and third, that we acquiesce in the sophisticated resignation called "the limits of social policy...

...Social breakdown—perhaps that's too strong, though each passing day makes it seem an appropriate term...

...In the pages that follow there is a sufficient accumulation of evidence that, even as American power in the world may be increasing, something like domestic social breakdown is becoming a reality...

...When we speak, however, of a social breakdown, we have in mind a serious crack-up or dissolution of those social bonds and norms, those social habits and practices, that are not likely soon to be corrected through the "normal" inner developments of the economy...

...If sometimes in these pages we theorize and speculate about longrange social change, it will be enough this time to speak about immediate needs...

...Nor do we pretend to be advancing a comprehensive theory of social breakdown...

...If the social sciences are not especially good at quantifying such things, you can probably find a keener realization in literature...

...The years of the Great Depression were marked by a cyclical economic downturn so severe it soon took on the characteristics of a social breakdown as well...

...Simply this: insofar as the country continues to ignore the need for social programs, insofar as it allows cities to fester, industries to collapse, growing segments of the population to fall into destitution, and insofar as it continues to advance an ethic that leads to a decline of community and solidarity, the process of social breakdown, limned in the following pages, will mount in intensity...

...Given an interval of bad times, that problem will remain in aggravated form...

...It is a commonplace that the rapidity of change in modern society, occurring as an interaction of technological and social factors, SPRING • 1991 • 167 Social Breakdown leaves many people stranded, feeling disoriented— psychologically and now, increasingly often, literally homeless...

...It required two radical courses to bring the depression to an end: first, the introduction of welfare-state reforms and Keynesian economic policies (which in fact were not enough to do the job) and then a wartime version of a command economy...

...Let me cite a few relatively moderate opinions...

...This is the clear lesson . . . from Europe...

...Predictably, "interdiction" didn't get very far, and the bored or frustrated generalissimo resigned from the "war" (quite as if he were a northern general at the start of the American Civil War...

...Given an interval of relative affluence, that problem may be alleviated, but it will remain...

...What the Bush administration could do was to declare a "war" ("kick ass...

...But just because these observations and forebodings have not yet been quantified or put into theoretical form is no reason to dismiss them...

...For example, there is no reason to suppose that the problem of the "underclass," especially the portion of it in the black community, will be solved if left to the mercies of the usual cyclical turns in the economy...

...However, in practice the narrow interests of sectors of the economy have to be regulated and restrained in the interest of the system as a whole...

...An important point: some of these changes may be all but inevitable—for instance, the recent decline of mass-production industries and the growth of new modes of production and the service sector...

...A last word: There are people of good intentions who may read this issue of Dissent and say, "Yes, what you're describing is true and important...

...The advanced democratic societies have reached an enviable level of prosperity but at the same time they are islands of abundance in the oceans of universal misery...

...When agents receive no price signals to deter them from activities damaging to other agents . . . the market by itself fails to allocate resources optimally among activities...

...We must find a way of integrating it into society so that it expresses the social contract and becomes an instrument of justice and fairness...

...Now, when this conscience collective starts to break down under the pressures of internal discord or external threat or both, there follows a condition of anomie, defined as a feeling among groups or individuals that the effort to achieve what the society calls success has become meaningless...

...Reaganism, as Nicolaus Mills writes (see p. 154) was about changing the social contract between citizens and their government...

...And if we're even to begin coping with the breakdown of services in the cities, with crime and drugs and homelessness and high-level thievery, it will only be by controlling the market and deflating its ideology...

...Dropping or falling out takes many forms...

...Is it not clear that the number of people in the United States who during the last several years could be described, more or less, in Durkheim's categories, has increased significantly...

...Let me just cite two or three: • Life expectancy for young black males in our cities is lower than that for males of equivalent age in Bangladesh...

...The probable contest in the United States for the immediate future will be between two versions of capitalism: an ideologically rigid adherence to a minimally regulated "free market," or Reaganism without Reagan, and a modernized capitalism more or less committed to a social compact and recognizing that a central issue is who regulates the market and for what ends...

...it doesn't even pretend to have a domestic social policy...

...Nor are they confined to the ghetto or the underclass...

...Such changes, to cite only a few, may include the large migration of blacks from the rural South to northern industrial cities, the collapse of some of those cities as a result of the transition from an industrial to a postindustrial economy, the decreasing availability of jobs for unskilled labor...

...Nor is this due, for most of our contributors, to ideological preconceptions: some of them, I'd guess, are not socialists but serious experts in specific fields...

...Anomie is not a single condition, it can take a multitude of forms...

...On the contrary, this is a moment in which to be especially alert, to watch and look and try to think...

...It would therefore be foolish to suppose that the process of anomie or other modes of social breakdown began simply with the Reagan years—of course not...

...That social contract said that the federal government had a responsibility to guarantee the accountability of the institutions on which the country depended...

...A cyclical crisis, at least according to some economic theories, can be expected to right itself in time...

...So it is fair to say that Reaganism brought about a measure of social reintegration...

...In fact, one important difference between the domestic situation in the Soviet Union, where things are of course much worse, and in the United States is that Gorbachev has at least publicly acknowledged the desperate straits in which his country finds itself while our president, the famous "asskicker," maintains an austere muteness regarding domestic problems...

...The rate of incarceration (in plain English, prison) in the United States has doubled during the 1980s and is expected to double again by the end of the century...

...This, despite the fact that American business has repeatedly used the state to maximize profits...

...The market neither interferes with nor protects anyone against such goniffs...

...No matter what the subject—crime, drugs, the savings and loans crisis—serious students of social problems all realize that the market, in its impersonality of function and its indifference to values and consequences, cannot cope with the afflictions that beset our society...

...The individual pursuit of selfish goals may produce public good in abstract capitalist theory...

...In West European welfare states, policies have been introduced toward this end...

...the market has no speech...

...It is the massing of such facts that occasions the forebodings and observations that lead us to speak of social breakdown...

...There is a paradox here...

...And I would answer unhesitatingly, "Yes, we certainly are, not because we think they are cure-alls but because we think they are important beginnings...

...In brief, for a large part of what we call civilization...

...Let me cite a familiar example...

...That is presumably the role of the state...

...it behaves as if neglect will pull it through...

...So that when the Bush administration does approach a major social problem like drugs, it does so without any serious examination of a very complex matter (by contrast, there was the Kerner commission on crime, see Elliot Currie's article p. 254...

...Not the total reality, but a significant part, and of course it hasn't gone nearly so far as in the Soviet Union...

...Fifty years ago, through a series of measures ranging from Social Security to Federal Deposit Insurance, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal established a modern social contract for America...

...The trouble is that the official ideology of American capitalism, its master myth, is anti-state...

...Let's just go step by step...

...The very language should tip us off that nothing is being thought through in any serious way...

...Some young blacks are then tempted to join drug gangs in order thereby both to emulate and challenge the dominant value system that discriminates against them...

...Such problems accumulate so copiously and are allowed to fester for such lengths of time that both definition and possible solution fade from public consciousness...

...Or, let's say, a handy approximation...

...Reaganism, on one level, surely helped to reinvigorate among many Americans their faith in "the system," which had suffered pretty severe bruises during the previous few decades...

...But let that pass for the moment, and let us talk about the market as if it were something like the autonomous economic process that its celebrants claim...

...Indeed, the Bush gang makes the Reaganites look like deep thinkers, because the latter did have some ideas...

...they may drift along in a state of confusion or cynicism, or they may twist the dominant value system into their own improvisation, copying some of its elements while also being strongly opposed to it...

...The prevalent "solutions" for nationwide problems are, first, that the market be allowed to proceed in its majestic mystery...