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.
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