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 become so much a part of our lives that we accept it as the normal condition. The United States emerged from World War II as the dominant political, economic and military power on earth. Its leaders re-organized the world to en- hance that power. A new political generation came of age which declared itself heir to Roosevelt's New Deal. It offered a new political vision, which it con- trasted from the two dominant international ideol- ogies of the day, communism and fascism. It called the new worldview "Liberalism." A Conservative Revolution Liberalism was bold and daring. It promised economic growth, political freedom and social har- mony, depicted itself as the reasonable center be- tween the extremes of Right and Left, and stood pre- pared to act as midwife to the birth of the "Ameri- can Century." Through the 1950s and into the 1960s, it seemed that the dreams of Liberalism had been realized; that the American Century had indeed been born. A robust economy surged forward beyond the most optimistic expectations; corporate profits and personal incomes both soared. With homes, automobiles and washing machines within the financial reach of millions, factory workers, far- mers and sales clerks began to live the life of the middle class. U.S. corporations flexed new muscles overseas with investments in Europe and former Third World colonies. With the end of the war in Korea, the United States engaged in no major military inter- ventions until the invasion of the Dominican Repub- lic in 1965. Where international involvement was called for, as in Iran and Guatemala, the newly cre- ated CIA did the job quickly, neatly and efficiently. The image of U.S. power awed even its allies. T HIS NEW PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY OF LIB- eralism faced a constant challenge from the Right, and twice failed to secure the presidency with the unsuccessful candidacies of Adlai Stevenson, Jr. Nonetheless, it continued to expand its influence as a vision, theory and program of government. In 1960, John F. Kennedy displaced Stevenson as the standard bearer of Liberalism, when key liberal in- tellectuals such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and John Kenneth Galbraith climbed on board the Kennedy bandwagon. The Kennedy Administration implemented the macroeconomic theories of the new generation of liberal economists. Under pressure from the emer- gent civil rights movement in the South, Kenne- dy talked of new government programs to combat injustice and poverty. Internationally, Kennedy's vision of a "new frontier" opened a new era of U.S. expansionism and provided an aggressive new challenge to "communism" and the Soviet Union through increased military spending and economic aid. President John F. Kennedy was the embodiment REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 20NBC-TV Debate, 1960 of Liberalism in power: an expanded state, neo- Keynesian economics, military preparedness, eco- nomic growth, harmony among all classes and ethnic groups, reforms at home and abroad and vig- orous anti-communism. But Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. His in- cumbency was short and promised more than it could deliver. 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. Even Richard Nixon, the archenemy of Liberalism, and his successor, Gerald Ford, em- braced the liberals' concept of expanded govern- ment and fiscal and monetary management. In 1971, Nixon confessed, "I am a Keynesian." ' In an eerie and inexplicable way, that November day in Dallas marked the end of something; for mil- lions of Americans, things never seemed the same again. The subjective sensation that an era had ended was mirrored in the very real deterioration of U.S. power and the quality of American life. DURING THE LAST 20 YEARS, MANY OF the basic assumptions of Liberalism have foundered. 0 The promised prosperity of the post-war period came to an end. The late 1960s saw a slowdown of the economic growth that had made prosperity pos- sible. 2 From 1968 to 1984, the U.S. economy ex- perienced five recessions. ' By the mid-1970s, basic U.S. industries- steel, automobiles-were no longer competitive with ri- vals in Europe, Japan or even the Third World. New production and management technologies provided the springboard for a direct challenge to the domi- nance of U.S.-based industries. Electronics and clothing manufacturers began to move their opera- tions to low-wage enclaves in South Korea, the Philippines and Central America. U.S. trade went from surpluses year after year to a 1984 deficit of over $100 billion. The war cry of business after World War II had been free trade; 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. Despite repeated recessions, runaway inflation took hold in the late 1960s-a phenomenon that many prominent economists found inexplicable. 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. * In 1971, the international structure of economic institutions which secured U.S. power snapped. Nixon's unilateral suspension of the Bretton Woods monetary agreements marked the beginning of the decline of U.S. world dominion. The centerpiece of U.S. post-war foreign pol- icy-containment of the Soviet Union-failed to bring its rival to heel. Instead, it provoked a dead- ly and unprecedented nuclear arms race that has SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1984 21Are the Democrats Different? brought humankind to the brink of mass destruction. Then in 1975, the United States lost its first war. As one veteran's T-shirt read, "Participant: U.S. Southeast Asia War Games. Second Place." 59,000 American lives and over a million Vietnamese were lost in America's longest war. Even with the most powerful armed forces in the world, the United States proved unable to defeat an army of Asian peasants. And Vietnam was only one of many Third World conflicts. Troops and advisers were needed to quell challenges to U.S. influence in the Dominican Re- public, Guatemala, Cambodia, Laos, Lebanon, Gre- nada and El Salvador. 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 pub- licized cases. Even then, nationalism in Iran, Africa and Central America continued to threaten U.S. no- tions of dominion. 0 At home, government came to be seen not as the answer to society's problems but as their cause. Ambitious programs of reform led not to social har- mony, as expected, but to suspicion among racial and ethnic communities, the fragmentation of politi- cal consensus and a loss of governmental legiti- macy. Political life grew increasingly unstable and polit- ical corruption commonplace. After Kennedy's as- sassination, 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 Amer- icans. Lyndon Johnson, facing resistance within his own party to his handling of the Vietnam War, chose not to seek a further term. 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. The cycle of decline in political ethics scarred the Republican Party even worse. Richard Nixon, fac- ing impeachment for criminal acts arising from the Watergate scandal, resigned; his vice-president, Spiro Agnew, pleaded guilty to federal charges of extortion. Gerald Ford, the caretaker president who completed Nixon's term, made a deal with his pre- decessor's aides to pardon him. Ford lost his bid for "a full term. Jimmy Carter, the fifth president in 16 years, was "a political neophyte faced with the task of sell- ing domestic austerity and a complex new frame- work for international relations. The activities of his brother Billy and Budget Director Bert Lance did little to enhance Carter's image as a leader. Rampant inflation and the U.S. humiliation in Iran were exploited by the Right to sweep Carter away. He became the fifth president in a row to serve only a single term. F OR THE ORDINARY WORKING PERSON, the crisis has been felt in more immediate ways. For the better part of two decades, daily existence and prospects for the future have worsened. In 1950, 70% of all Americans could afford to buy a house; by 1980, this quintessential American dream was within the reach of only 20% of the population. 4 Health care costs increased 125% from 1950 to 1970. ' From 1971 to 1981, the cost of an average stay in the hospital soared from $670 to $2,119. 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. ' The real median family income in 1981 was less than the real median family income in 1968. ' Women still earn only 60% of the full-time earnings of men, black women only 53% and Hispanic women a mere 44%. ' Women with four years of college education earn only 59.5% of the mean an- nual income of similarly qualified men. "' The structure of the fastest growing sectors of the economy-health care, business and banking ser- vices, fast foods-concentrates many low-wage, un- skilled, non-union jobs at the bottom and a few very high-wage jobs at the top. " Highly skilled, well- paid jobs are increasingly eliminated in favor of au- tomation. 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. Black and Hispanic men earn only 80% of white males' wages. 12 Death by homicide is eight to nine times higher than in other advanced industrial countries. " From 1972 to 1981, reported crimes increased by 61.1% and the official crime rate by 46%. "' "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." " Murder and suicide are, in fact, the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. '" The country has 13 million alcoholics. "7 It has a greater percen- REPORT 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. '" 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. The Right is well-organ- ized, committed and certain of where it wants the country to go. Liberals, whose own project lies amidst the rub- ble of unfulfilled expectations, have finally ac- knowledged the crisis and begun to grope for solu- tions. 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. For the Left in the United States, capitalism by definition is perpetually in crisis; leftists have been slow to comprehend the special gravity of the cur- rent period. Their own institutions are fragile after 40 years of repression and internal division, and their inability to challenge the ideological domi- nance of Liberalism. The Left has had enormous trouble articulating a response to the present crisis. As yet, it offers no credible alternative to the grow- ing hegemony of the Right and its consolidation of state power. An important beginning, however, is the work of Josh Cohen, a political scientist at MIT, and Joel Rogers, a political scientist at Rutgers. In their im- portant 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. Something is falling down and breaking apart, and it will not be re- lieved or explained away by endless recollec- tions of the "national interest," ill-starred bouts of bipartisan consensus, or limitless smiles from party leaders. 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. Everywhere there are signs of social decomposition and decay, from disintegrating neighborhoods and vio- lent schools to pervasive crime and child abuse. The economy stagnates. The polity languishes. The once celebrated civic culture turns inward and eats itself alive. '1 The Reagan Administration and the American Right offer a challenge, because they-for better or for worse-do at least address the crisis. They have a vision, a program, a committed army of leaders and believers and the will to wield power. They promise a return to the halcyon days of economic growth and world dominion; a calmer, more peace- ful America of song and myth. Reagan's victory in 1980 was of unusual significance in U.S. history. It marked the end of an era: the end of the politics of the center and the beginning of the politics of the Right. Reor oc z4the Ameris Are the Democrats Different? 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. 3. Business Week, July 2, 1984. 4. Josh Cohen and Joel Rogers, On Democracy (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), p. 2 5 . 5. Ibid., p.24. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Andrew Hacker, ed., UIS: A Statistical Portrait of the American People (New York: Viking Press and Pen- guin Books, 1983), p. 1 5 7 . 9. Cohen and Rogers, On Democracy, p. 3 1. 10. Ibid. 11. Mike Davis, "Late Imperial America," New Left Review (January-February 1984), pp. 2 3 - 2 5 . 12. Cohen and Rogers, On Democracy, p.32. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. Ibid., p.27. Ibid., p.28. Ibid. Ibid., p.29. Ibid. Ibid., p.28. Ibid., p.16.
