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A Work in Progress
December 1, 2011 | 7 comments
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A Book of Their Own
November 5, 2010 | 11 comments
Buy the Book
An '80s Edsall
Thomas Edsall thinks he’s saying something new — but it’s nothing more than a return to a tired liberal argument about the right.
The Age of
Austerity: How
Scarcity Will Remake American
Politics
By Thomas Byrne
Edsall
(Doubleday, 256 pages,
$24.95)
Thomas Edsall’s new book on the coming “age of austerity” is an example of why it will not be a moment too soon for the Boomers and their MSM mandarins to leave the scene.
The book purports to explain what is happening in American politics in a time of narrowed expectations and reduced resources. The economic dislocations of the past four years have impacted both the abilities of government and the expectations of the governed. This has caused our political life to begin fracturing along class-based lines rarely seen in American politics.
Edsall, who was long at the Washington Post and who now has a column at the New York Times online, believes he has discovered the key to the political dimension of this global economic and financial meltdown. According to Edsall, these stresses have caused polarization in the electorate we are told, and the rupturing of the “broad, tacit compromise” that “required a growing economy to fund an array of social programs while keeping taxes relatively low in order to moderate hostilities in a politically charged resource war.”
The future in this new age will be “brutish,” but when Edsall gets down to details, it seems the Republicans have all the brutishness and the liberals, not so much. The financial crisis is an opportunity for both parties to use “fear,” for Edsall, but the left is at a disadvantage because its “natural spirit of generosity” — presumably, with other people’s money — is hampered, while the Republicans’ bottomless greed can proceed unabated. Even the Democrats’ moderation is turned against them, for their “willingness to compromise” has made the Republican even more grasping in their demands.
But we have heard all this before. Substitute Reagan for current Republican leadership, say, or evangelicals for the Tea Party, and we could be back in the 1980s. The story, for people of Edsall’s age and background, must always be the same. In a time of scarcity and economic stress, the Democrats try to preserve the safety net, and even (prudently, of course) to expand it, while various right-wingers want to hold onto their money a little longer (as well as, presumably, their guns and religion, an emendation to the old formula by the current President). What Edsall does not address is whether the Republicans have a point. If the economy is shrinking and social services must be cut, why is it extremism to say so and tolerance to ignore it? Insofar as there was a social compact in the nation that supported the welfare state at the national level - and there are good argument why there should be — for many Americans, the policies of the last three decades have eroded the trust needed to sustain such a compact.
Edsall recognizes the threat but then mostly fails to address its causes, preferring to condemn its symptoms, such as large-scale distrust by middle-class Americans who want the government to look out for them as citizens rather than seeing them as alternatively taxpayers or consumers. There is even a chapter on busing in a North Carolina school district, which Edsall uses as a commentary on the alleged racism of the Tea Party, the high costs and problems of the program notwithstanding. (The false accusations of racist epithets made by the Tea Party here go unmentioned.) Nor does Edsall acknowledge the rift between what different minority groups want, and how this might affect the notion of a social consensus or the requirements of a welfare state.
Edsall’s story arc, for most Americans, does not work anymore. At most, his book is a sign of how far politics has changed such that even long-term observers miss the clear signs of change; at worst, Edsall offers little more than an in-tribe call to arms for his fellow members of the elite media. Nelson Rockefeller (!) gets a mention in book’s index but Angelo Mozilo, the head of Countrywide mortgage whose lackadaisical lending policies brought down the company, does not. Nor do Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the “GSEs” whose insatiable demand for mortgages played a major role in the crisis. And although the Tea Party comes in for a drubbing, the candidacy of and movement around Ron Paul gets no mention.
Edsall states flatly that the economic problems are not caused by public policy or “market failure,” but by global competition. This is, largely, nonsense. The financial industry is highly regulated in every modern nation, and those regulations reflect policy choices with real world effects. And Edsall completely ignores the public policies of easy credit and freely available mortgages, which went hand in hand with lavish government spending at all levels that can no longer be sustained.
The country is indeed passing through a time of transition, which will include greater austerity measures. Edsall does corral some useful statistics and notes that austerity is being taken by both parties as a club to punish the other side and as a call for their own solutions, and he does provide another example of the dysfunction in Washington. What is needed is new thinking about politics and our national political future, but on this score, The Age of Austerity is just more of the same.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (14) | Leave a comment
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Wade Smith| 2.9.12 @ 9:28AM
Sounds like the author is arguing Carter was right and Reagan was wrong.
Alan Brooks| 2.9.12 @ 4:09PM
"An '80s Edsall"
You are all living in the '80s.
In the '80s you were living in the '50s.
Alan Brooks| 2.9.12 @ 9:20PM
This is yoir slogan:
"I Like Ike and Reagan"
And why not? the two were the best you could offer America. But now the fat lady has sung.
Wade Smith| 2.9.12 @ 9:28AM
Sounds like the author is arguing Carter was right and Reagan was wrong.
Timothy L. Pennell| 2.9.12 @ 10:06AM
We are going through a Man Made Disaster, CAUSED by the Good Intentions of Liberals. This is no different than the many FORCED FAMINES, initiated by Mr. Edsall's favorite people. Men are so much easier to Control, when they're weak from lack of Nourishment, aren't they?
To Mr. Edsall (Could somebody PLEASE get this guy a COMB, and some Clothes that FIT?) Castro's Cuba is the Model for the rest of the world. What's a few Thousand Political Prisoners rotting in Prison, compared to Fairness for the Masses?
In Mr. Edsall's mind, Mao's Cultural Revolution was an Atheist's Heaven on Earth. Think about it. Everybody had the same thing. They wore the exact same Suit of Clothes, every day. They all had the exact same Portion of Rice, every day. They all feared the exact same Single Bullet To The Head, every day. Perfect Equality was achieved.
The Soviets had achieved Nirvana. Everybody had a job. Everybody had an apartment. Everybody stood in lines to get the 5 things on the Empty Store shelves. Everybody feared the KBG, and the Frozen Gulag that awaited them, should they forget their place, and speaks words about Freedom or Liberty, within earshot of the Secret Police, or their Informants.
Now, the new kid on the block, the Black Muslim, seeks to drag his Country in to another GODLESS Paradise. His attacks on the 1st Amendments Religious Clauses, are becoming more Invasive, and more Frequent, by the day. He is on a Mission. He is on a road, well traveled, by men like him, who came before.
Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Chavez.
They all achieved what they set out to do. They created a Hell on Earth, for their people. Millions Died in the name of their Leaders' Ideology. That's what: "By any means necessary" means.
Millions more will die, if he gets his wish of Transforming America in to a Third World Country.
That's what he wants.
That's what Mr. Edsall wants.
That's what they will get, if we don't win in November.
SIC SEMPER TYRANUS!
PolishKnight| 2.9.12 @ 10:15AM
What's funny is that the left actually is seeking to transfer money from their serfs (private industry working and middle class Americans) to upper middle class and wealthy Democrat cronies now including Wall Street (Goldman Sachs and big banks cashing in free government bonds).
Leftism is clearly morally bankrupt and doesn't "care" about people based upon empathy but rather cynically to buy their votes. A Manhattan investor cashing in TARP funds to live in a luxury upper east side condo gets more compassion from them than a plumber working in a trailer park in the midwest.
TrueBlue | 2.9.12 @ 1:27PM
The equality argument is just a facade for those in charge of the Democrat party to achieve their nobility and ruler status. They give speeches about fairness this, and he should pay/do more that, but the majority of them don't even follow their own words.
I don't care what your party's goals are so much as what you yourself are saying. Obama's current call for anyone earning more than $1 mil should never pay below 30% in taxes being a prime example. Pay up or shut up Mr. President, you only paid 25%, why didn't you write a check to the IRS for that remaining 5%? I don't care that Romney only paid around 15%, he isn't the one spouting that "fairness" crap.
What I say is all for thee, not for me.
PolishKnight| 2.9.12 @ 2:50PM
Trueblue, I hate to play devil's advocate here, but in all defense of the leftists I personally cannot live up to super high standards where I have to live by my own code + someone elses via the law. If it's possible, great. For example, a vegetarian whose against meat. But if the government is handing out tax rebates for green energy and I'm against them in principle but I can get a solar water heater for $100, I'm taking it.
If you think about it..., the success of leftism is all about them breaking their own rules. They count on it. They view playing by the rules, even their own rules, as a suckers' game. What's funny though is that they're such amazing SoreLosers. Remember Florida Y2K? When someone decides to start stuffing their gloves with lead you have to stop fighting fair and kick them as hard as you can because deep down, they won't respect you otherwise.
Or, just hug the precious Constitution and pray and see how that works out.
Alan Brooks| 2.9.12 @ 9:21PM
"What's funny is that the left actually is seeking to transfer money from their serfs (private industry working and middle class Americans) to upper middle class and wealthy Democrat cronies now including Wall Street (Goldman Sachs and big banks cashing in free government bonds)."
21st century trickle down.
gerald russello | 2.9.12 @ 1:53PM
Thanks for youe comments!
Bob K.| 2.9.12 @ 2:33PM
Very good, Mr. Russello.
Mr Edsall, A member of our disappearing "best and brightest" generation has written a "social stew" typical of that generation which did not study History and like the Sun King "forgot nothing and learned nothing."
'...........the average member of the rising generation has studied not history, but "social stew." If ignorant of history, that rising generation may wander bewildered in the cunning passages, the contrived corridors and issues. And at the heart of such a labyrinth, we are told, there has lurked for ages the Minotaur."
Russell Kirk.
From the last sentences in his foreword to John Lukacs's "Historical Consciousness-The Remembered Past." Copyright 1968 and 1985. 7th printing 2009.
J.C.Eaton| 2.9.12 @ 2:55PM
Liberals never appreciate the richness of their own irony, They scream until hoarse about inequality and immediately demand money....and always from other people. Money for "education", money for "safety-nets," money for free food....money "for our youth," money for "housing"...money for other people's transportation.... money for other countries...money for every goddam thing under heaven. But always someone else's money...someone else's "sacrifice," and always right damn now because everything is a crisis.They really don't even want genuine justice...they want free balloons and soda and popcorn and entertainment...who even knows anymore what they want. In the end they just want everything, they want it pronto, and they want it from everyone else.
PolishKnight| 2.10.12 @ 1:22PM
When I was talking to a leftist recently, I pointed out to him that I couldn't support his agenda because it tossed me (a working/middle class private enterprise white male) under the bus. He then looked at me like he would a cat he's about to put to sleep and said: "You're ignorant. I'm trying to help you. You're also selfish. I'm not doing that at all. You're imagining it."
In other words, they're political sociopaths. They say it's not their fault or blame their victims or just dismiss the screams from the gulags as so much white noise because they want to be part of their Big Government team. And that's just the elitist ones I've talked to. The rest aren't motivated by ego at all but just want a handout.
Everything else, even their positions on likeable sounding ideas such as sustainable energy, helping the poor, etc. are all just fluff. It's just something they say they care about to sell to the naive and ignorant (mostly schoolkids) to join and justify their gang.
Bob S| 2.9.12 @ 11:28PM
Austerity?
But none for the official counterfeiter in our midst, the Fed. Reserve.
Funny that.
But it funds the Dim/Repug warfare/welfare state and the boom/bust cycle.
Can't mess with that.
IOW those that caused the problem, can't solve it.
They need to go work for Mr. Trump. I think he's got a line for their likes: "You're fired".