The Crisis
A MAJOR CRISIS AFFLICTS THE UNITED States today. Touching on every aspect of life-political, economic, social and cultural-it has been worsening annually for almost 20 years. The crisis has...
...They promise a return to the halcyon days of economic growth and world dominion...
...Troops and advisers were needed to quell challenges to U.S...
...The poverty rate for black Americans is three times that of whites: more than one-third of the black community and one-fourth of the Hispanic community live below the poverty line...
...A MAJOR CRISIS AFFLICTS THE UNITED States today...
...Even with the most powerful armed forces in the world, the United States proved unable to defeat an army of Asian peasants...
...For the Left in the United States, capitalism by definition is perpetually in crisis...
...Their own institutions are fragile after 40 years of repression and internal division, and their inability to challenge the ideological dominance of Liberalism...
...T HE AMERICAN RIGHT KNOWS THAT something is deeply wrong and has organized a political and economic program to halt the decline and bring about change...
...But they seem condemned to repeat the rhetoric of the past or tinker with their old programs, apparently incapable of projecting a new vision for the future...
...From 1972 to 1981, reported crimes increased by 61.1% and the official crime rate by 46...
...The United States emerged from World War II as the dominant political, economic and military power on earth...
...The cycle of decline in political ethics scarred the Republican Party even worse...
...Nonetheless, it continued to expand its influence as a vision, theory and program of government...
...By the early 1980s, it had wiped out the improvements in the standard of living enjoyed by the average American family after World War II...
...Gerald Ford, the caretaker president who completed Nixon's term, made a deal with his predecessor's aides to pardon him...
...Ibid...
...Reor oc z4the Ameris Are the Democrats Different...
...DURING THE LAST 20 YEARS, MANY OF the basic assumptions of Liberalism have foundered...
...Everywhere there are signs of social decomposition and decay, from disintegrating neighborhoods and violent schools to pervasive crime and child abuse...
...Rampant inflation and the U.S...
...8. Andrew Hacker, ed., UIS: A Statistical Portrait of the American People (New York: Viking Press and Penguin Books, 1983), p. 1 5 7 . 9. Cohen and Rogers, On Democracy, p. 3 1. 10...
...The activities of his brother Billy and Budget Director Bert Lance did little to enhance Carter's image as a leader...
...post-war foreign policy-containment of the Soviet Union-failed to bring its rival to heel...
...Black and Hispanic men earn only 80% of white males' wages...
...In 1950, 70% of all Americans could afford to buy a house...
...Electronics and clothing manufacturers began to move their operations to low-wage enclaves in South Korea, the Philippines and Central America...
...A robust economy surged forward beyond the most optimistic expectations...
...Cohen and Rogers, On Democracy, p.32...
...His incumbency was short and promised more than it could deliver...
...notions of dominion...
...Something is falling down and breaking apart, and it will not be relieved or explained away by endless recollections of the "national interest," ill-starred bouts of bipartisan consensus, or limitless smiles from party leaders...
...2 3 - 2 5 . 12...
...The Kennedy Administration implemented the macroeconomic theories of the new generation of liberal economists...
...In 1971, the international structure of economic institutions which secured U.S...
...The once celebrated civic culture turns inward and eats itself alive...
...He became the fifth president in a row to serve only a single term...
...A Conservative Revolution Liberalism was bold and daring...
...power awed even its allies...
...In an eerie and inexplicable way, that November day in Dallas marked the end of something...
...T HIS NEW PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY OF LIBeralism faced a constant challenge from the Right, and twice failed to secure the presidency with the unsuccessful candidacies of Adlai Stevenson, Jr...
...References THE CRISIS 1. Frederick F. Siegel, Troubled Journey: From Pearl Harbor to Ronald Reagan (New York, Hill and Wang, 1984), p. 2 3 5 ; Alan Wolfe, America's Impasse (Boston, South End Press, 1981) p. 7 4 . 2. Godfrey Hodgson, America in Our Time (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), chapter 12...
...2 From 1968 to 1984, the U.S...
...U.S...
...The crisis has become so much a part of our lives that we accept it as the normal condition...
...power and the quality of American life...
...President John F. Kennedy was the embodiment REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 20NBC-TV Debate, 1960 of Liberalism in power: an expanded state, neoKeynesian economics, military preparedness, economic growth, harmony among all classes and ethnic groups, reforms at home and abroad and vigorous anti-communism...
...Ibid., p.28...
...now, in the 1980s, the call from nationally based industries and from the labor movement is for "fair trade--in the form of some kind of tariff regulation...
...59,000 American lives and over a million Vietnamese were lost in America's longest war...
...influence in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Cambodia, Laos, Lebanon, Grenada and El Salvador...
...6 Yet the quality of health care declined: in 1980 the United States ranked 20th in the world in male life expectancy, 1 Ith in female life expectancy and 22nd in infant mortality...
...In 1971, Nixon confessed, "I am a Keynesian...
...It marked the end of an era: the end of the politics of the center and the beginning of the politics of the Right...
...Women still earn only 60% of the full-time earnings of men, black women only 53% and Hispanic women a mere 44...
...And Vietnam was only one of many Third World conflicts...
...corporate profits and personal incomes both soared...
...economy experienced five recessions...
...From 1971 to 1981, the cost of an average stay in the hospital soared from $670 to $2,119...
...corporations flexed new muscles overseas with investments in Europe and former Third World colonies...
...New production and management technologies provided the springboard for a direct challenge to the dominance of U.S.-based industries...
...0 At home, government came to be seen not as the answer to society's problems but as their cause...
...Mike Davis, "Late Imperial America," New Left Review (January-February 1984), pp...
...The CIA, an institution created after World War II to expand the options for indirect intervention, supplemented these efforts in Burma, Guyana, Chile, Malaysia, Angola and Nicaragua--to name only the most widely publicized cases...
...Women with four years of college education earn only 59.5% of the mean annual income of similarly qualified men...
...Even then, nationalism in Iran, Africa and Central America continued to threaten U.S...
...7 It has a greater percenREPORT ON THE AMERICASYoung Republicans, 1968 tage of its citizens in jail than any other country in the world except the Soviet Union and South Africa...
...7. Ibid...
...Everywhere there are sounds of intractable conflict over basic issues of public policy, from the direction of trade and industrial growth to the cost of credit and national defense...
...The war cry of business after World War II had been free trade...
...Where international involvement was called for, as in Iran and Guatemala, the newly created CIA did the job quickly, neatly and efficiently...
...As yet, it offers no credible alternative to the growing hegemony of the Right and its consolidation of state power...
...With the end of the war in Korea, the United States engaged in no major military interventions until the invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965...
...The economy stagnates...
...Through the 1950s and into the 1960s, it seemed that the dreams of Liberalism had been realized...
...a calmer, more peaceful America of song and myth...
...It offered a new political vision, which it contrasted from the two dominant international ideologies of the day, communism and fascism...
...Ford lost his bid for "a full term...
...12 Death by homicide is eight to nine times higher than in other advanced industrial countries...
...The Left has had enormous trouble articulating a response to the present crisis...
...Ibid...
...4. Josh Cohen and Joel Rogers, On Democracy (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), p. 2 5 . 5. Ibid., p.24...
...Political life grew increasingly unstable and political corruption commonplace...
...F OR THE ORDINARY WORKING PERSON, the crisis has been felt in more immediate ways...
...In 1960, John F. Kennedy displaced Stevenson as the standard bearer of Liberalism, when key liberal intellectuals such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr...
...4 Health care costs increased 125% from 1950 to 1970...
...With homes, automobiles and washing machines within the financial reach of millions, factory workers, farmers and sales clerks began to live the life of the middle class...
...The structure of the fastest growing sectors of the economy-health care, business and banking services, fast foods-concentrates many low-wage, unskilled, non-union jobs at the bottom and a few very high-wage jobs at the top...
...A new political generation came of age which declared itself heir to Roosevelt's New Deal...
...world dominion...
...6. Ibid...
...Then in 1975, the United States lost its first war...
...power snapped...
...1 The Reagan Administration and the American Right offer a challenge, because they-for better or for worse-do at least address the crisis...
...humiliation in Iran were exploited by the Right to sweep Carter away...
...Murder and suicide are, in fact, the sixth leading cause of death in the United States...
...They have a vision, a program, a committed army of leaders and believers and the will to wield power...
...history...
...The polity languishes...
...For the better part of two decades, daily existence and prospects for the future have worsened...
...Ibid...
...The larger-than-life Johnson reeked of backroom political deals, and his career skated close to scandal when his protfg6 and special assistant, Bobby Baker, was convicted of corruption and jailed...
...his vice-president, Spiro Agnew, pleaded guilty to federal charges of extortion...
...The late 1960s saw a slowdown of the economic growth that had made prosperity possible...
...The country has 13 million alcoholics...
...The image of U.S...
...Ibid., p.27...
...Lyndon Johnson, facing resistance within his own party to his handling of the Vietnam War, chose not to seek a further term...
...Instead, it provoked a deadly and unprecedented nuclear arms race that has SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1984 21Are the Democrats Different...
...The centerpiece of U.S...
...brought humankind to the brink of mass destruction...
...The real median family income in 1981 was less than the real median family income in 1968...
...Ibid., p.29...
...Nixon's unilateral suspension of the Bretton Woods monetary agreements marked the beginning of the decline of U.S...
...Reagan's victory in 1980 was of unusual significance in U.S...
...Ibid., p.28...
...The Right is well-organized, committed and certain of where it wants the country to go...
...In their important short work, On Democracy, published in 1983, they write vividly of the moment: Something is wrong in American society, and something more than Reaganism is now at stake in national politics...
...Despite repeated recessions, runaway inflation took hold in the late 1960s-a phenomenon that many prominent economists found inexplicable...
...Highly skilled, wellpaid jobs are increasingly eliminated in favor of automation...
...Ibid., p.16...
...Ambitious programs of reform led not to social harmony, as expected, but to suspicion among racial and ethnic communities, the fragmentation of political consensus and a loss of governmental legitimacy...
...by 1980, this quintessential American dream was within the reach of only 20% of the population...
...trade went from surpluses year after year to a 1984 deficit of over $100 billion...
...3. Business Week, July 2, 1984...
...Even Richard Nixon, the archenemy of Liberalism, and his successor, Gerald Ford, embraced the liberals' concept of expanded government and fiscal and monetary management...
...Under pressure from the emergent civil rights movement in the South, Kennedy talked of new government programs to combat injustice and poverty...
...Richard Nixon, facing impeachment for criminal acts arising from the Watergate scandal, resigned...
...His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, faithfully carried out most of the liberal programs that gave substance to Kennedy's promises: the War on Poverty, new housing legislation, federal health care, aid to public education and a war in Southeast Asia...
...Liberals, whose own project lies amidst the rubble of unfulfilled expectations, have finally acknowledged the crisis and begun to grope for solutions...
...industries- steel, automobiles-were no longer competitive with rivals in Europe, Japan or even the Third World...
...By the mid-1970s, basic U.S...
...It promised economic growth, political freedom and social harmony, depicted itself as the reasonable center between the extremes of Right and Left, and stood prepared to act as midwife to the birth of the "American Century...
...If one was born in and remains a resident of a major American city," wrote Josh Cohen and Joel Rogers, "one's chances of death by murder are greater than the threat of death in combat experienced by American soldiers in World War II...
...leftists have been slow to comprehend the special gravity of the current period...
...for millions of Americans, things never seemed the same again...
...that the American Century had indeed been born...
...Internationally, Kennedy's vision of a "new frontier" opened a new era of U.S...
...0 The promised prosperity of the post-war period came to an end...
...It called the new worldview "Liberalism...
...and John Kenneth Galbraith climbed on board the Kennedy bandwagon...
...Second Place...
...But Kennedy was assassinated in 1963...
...Southeast Asia War Games...
...An important beginning, however, is the work of Josh Cohen, a political scientist at MIT, and Joel Rogers, a political scientist at Rutgers...
...The subjective sensation that an era had ended was mirrored in the very real deterioration of U.S...
...Its leaders re-organized the world to enhance that power...
...expansionism and provided an aggressive new challenge to "communism" and the Soviet Union through increased military spending and economic aid...
...As one veteran's T-shirt read, "Participant: U.S...
...After Kennedy's assassination, the carefully constructed image of Camelot crumbled in the face of sordid revelations of JFK's private life, joint CIA-Mafia plots to kill Fidel Castro and telephone taps on prominent Americans...
...Jimmy Carter, the fifth president in 16 years, was "a political neophyte faced with the task of selling domestic austerity and a complex new framework for international relations...
Vol. 18 • September 1984 • No. 5
