Hard questions for the left

...These are some of the core requisites of progress toward a democratic society with citizens of more equitable status and means...

...Now a confident and arrogant propertied class believes it defeated communism—the world is now its oyster...

...Nevertheless, to exchange the "temporary assistance" of the current programs for a permanent subsistence-income entitlement would play right into the social/economic ideology of the upper classes and serve to increase the rigidities of class stratification...

...According to it, the world divides into those who are productive and those who are not...

...We have not yet articulated an effective regime of regulating international capital or provided a credible answer to the productivity/wage conundrum in services...

...We need new tools to manage the economy...

...We must rein in the bond traders who have gained far too much power to set the public agenda and who are fond of claiming that 6 percent unemployment is "non-inflationary full employment...

...The mass of employed workers in industry or services is deemed not "creative" and thus not productive of competitive advantage, which is the preeminent condition of wealth creation in the global economy...

...This may have been true once when the Great Depression undercut the self-confidence of the propertied classes and communism threatened from across the seas...

...The expansion of international capital flows and the growing strength of multinational corporations have largely disarmed national governments of their tools of macro-economic management...

...But let us assume for a moment that today's ruling classes were persuaded (responding to a plausible line of argument) that some sort of subsistence guaranteed income would facilitate a degree of social order that would actually enhance the capacity of the productive classes to create and manage their wealth (or, at least, reduce their anxiety about crime...

...q 184 • DISSENT...

...And, as the productivity and wealth of the country increase, we must achieve a norm of fewer work hours a year in order to share effectively the declining aggregate societal labor requirement...

...Finally, we do not have an ideology of future collective prosperity—if anything, we have an ideology of economic and ecological doom...

...The Boston Globe then ran a cartoon with the tag line, "That's all we need, a third Republican Party...

...This is, of course, only a new gloss on an old ideology...

...It is far more attractive to cultivate and listen to the Murrays and Feldsteins who recite endlessly the virtues of laissez-faire and thus absolve those on top of any guilt that might slip in...

...What the left has offered is a lot of criticism of the economic system, but people don't vote for you because you use fancy constructs to tell them what they already know —that the boss has the power and that somebody else has what you need...

...The combination of unanticipated 182 • DISSENT Right Turn slower growth and the demographic bulge of the aging baby boom have undermined public confidence in the Social Security system's ability to meet future obligations without truly onerous taxation of wage earners...

...In this new economic and ideological reality progressives have had little to offer a majority of citizens...

...The near-term prospects of the American left are so poor because it suffers from the same basic deficiencies as the old ruling center...

...Those who "freely" chose to receive the social income would also be selecting membership in a class with no moral claim to the wealth of the society beyond what the "productive" class chose to give them...

...Nor have progressives faced the growing burden of Social Security taxes on the younger generation of workers...

...We must regain the government's capacity to use fiscal policy to moderate the business cycle...

...One way to understand the growing power of conservative ideology is that for most Americans it appears far more likely that they will improve their position through individual effort, initiative, and luck than through collective action—either through associations such as unions or through government...

...However unrealistic, this allows the welfare recipient a fragile tie to dignity, because dependence is to be a temporary measure enabling an eventual return to the status of "contributing member of society...

...A recent public opinion study commissioned by the AFL-CIO found that "the top reason people give for the decline in unionization is that 'economic changes have made it hard for unions to protect their members' wages and jobs.' " The fact that conservatives are having an easy time undermining collective institutions is testament mainly to the new, weakened conditions of those institutions...

...According to what political and social dynamic would this social income-dependent class ever gain more than the meanest subsistence...

...so why bother buying off the poor and wage-laboring classes with reform...

...But the mythical Phoenix will not be the vehicle for the left's recovery...

...Four weeks after the 1994 elections former liberal, former senator, and former presidential hopeful Paul Tsongas proclaimed the need for a third party and invited Colin Powell to be its standard bearer...

...The political momentum of guaranteed income proposals peaked in the United States in the period of 1968-1973 at a time when economic optimism, growth rates, and employment opportunities had been high for a generation...

...How neatly a guaranteed subsistence income would fit with the ideology of producSPRING • 1995 • 183 Right Turn tivity...

...The transformation of the economy from a predominance of factory-based industrial production to the predominance of "service" production has weakened unions and attached a drag on productivity and wage rate growth...

...In its most virulent form techno/ managerial and professional elites believe it is they alone who are the wealth creators, thus they deserve hugely disproportionate shares of any wealth created...

...After the economy faltered in 1973-1974, guaranteed income has never returned to the serious policy agenda...

...From a position of extreme pessimism about social control of economies, Offe jumps to a position of unwarranted optimism about the potential for a collective decision to provide a guaranteed base income to all citizens...

...It is a tragedy that a "permanent welfare class" with low civic esteem has developed because of the failure of the economy to reach full employment...

...It has no credible program for delivering what the broad public most wants from its government— a rising standard of living and the security that it won't disappear overnight...

...It is tempting to hope that a rejuvenated American left will rise from the ashes of the final collapse of the centrist Democratic congressional coalition...

...New Deal market-moderating reforms, it has been said, were palatable in the United States because they would "save capitalism from itself...

...This condition may seem little different than that of those now "on the dole," but there is one important difference...

...Current welfare programs (those for the "able-bodied") are meant to be temporary support until the person can find a job and regain economic independence...

...From the American experience it is hard to make the case that the public in Germany or anywhere else will support guaranteed income proposals when economic insecurity is rampant...

...More important than the issue of the current political appeal of guaranteed income policies is a troubling question of their potential contribution to the hardening of the new class stratification...

...We must construct better solutions to the problem of unemployment...

...The votes will come when the left demonstrates it can change the formulas of power and justice and deliver prosperity...

...In the Winter 1995 issue of Dissent, Claus Offe proposes a partial solution to the current failure of national macro-economic management toward the social goal of full employment...

...For a progressive reader that cartoon was likely to elicit a nod of agreement and a short chuckle, but it also carried a dismal reminder that the American left has no meaningful voice or power in national politics...

...Until progressives have a program that can effectively address these issues and frame it in an inspiring positive vision of the future, we should not expect to regain lost ground, especially on the terrain of national politics...

...To have a chance at achieving broad popularity and democratic political power the left must have a credible vision of a good life (from its material to its spiritual dimension) for all in a healthy and robust environment...

...And besides, experience shows it costs much more than even the most generous New Deal programs to ameliorate the ravages of the market...

...it will have to be much more of a bootstrap affair, likely to take decades...

...We must discourage low-wage-seeking disinvestment from America...

...If the left is to achieve a meaningful presence in the nation's politics it must offer credible responses to these conditions...

...Already in the United States we have the spread of an ideology of personal productivity...