Anatol Lieven, the author of those lucid columns in the London Review of Books predicting the Iraq war long before it happened, writes that we are facing the first "existential crisis of the U.S. political and economic system" since the Great Depression that began in 1929. -- "If the recent combination of natural and man-made disasters does not stimulate debate on such reform," writes Lieven, "then the future looks bleak indeed." -- The crisis of the Great Depression "was overcome thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. But the intellectual underpinnings of the New Deal had been developed by progressive thinkers in America over the previous 40 years. In Germany or France today, serious reform at present may be politically unfeasible -- but at least the issues have been debated and solutions will be at hand if circumstances change. In the U.S., by contrast, serious reformist thinking is absent not only from the two political parties but also from the mainstream media and most think-tanks. The parties are paralyzed by the influence of powerful groups devoted to defending the status quo. The media and think-tanks are also largely disabled by their links to political and economic interests." -- Lieven is anything but optimistic: "If a crisis on the scale of 1929-32 strikes the U.S. tomorrow, the country would not find an FDR with a New Deal program to run against the Republican's Herbert Hoover. It would have a timid and ineffective Hoover for the Democrats running against a Republican Calvin Coolidge, a hidebound defender of the worst aspects of the existing system. If that had been the choice in 1932, the very foundations of the American state would eventually have been in peril." ...
THERE IS NO 'NEW DEAL' IN TODAY'S AMERICA
By Anatol Lieven
Financial Times (UK)
October 4, 2005
The next few months in the U.S. may reveal an answer to the central question of American life today: whether the present system is capable of serious reform. If the recent combination of natural and man-made disasters does not stimulate debate on such reform, then the future looks bleak indeed.
The issue is not whether such reform can take place quickly, but whether American society is capable of talking seriously about it. The actual implementation of radical change, in the U.S. or elsewhere, does not occur without a crisis. At present, such a crisis is being prevented by the willingness of China and Japan to buy U.S. debt, sustain U.S. consumer spending on their exports, and allow the Bush administration to go on cutting taxes. But this situation is fragile. By radically increasing the U.S. budget deficit and emphasizing the future costs of global warming, hurricanes Katrina and Rita have underlined that fragility and helped draw the contours of future crises.
The last existential crisis of the U.S. political and economic system was the Great Depression from 1929. That crisis was overcome thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. But the intellectual underpinnings of the New Deal had been developed by progressive thinkers in America over the previous 40 years. In Germany or France today, serious reform at present may be politically unfeasible -- but at least the issues have been debated and solutions will be at hand if circumstances change. In the U.S., by contrast, serious reformist thinking is absent not only from the two political parties but also from the mainstream media and most think-tanks. The parties are paralyzed by the influence of powerful groups devoted to defending the status quo. The media and think-tanks are also largely disabled by their links to political and economic interests. In the wake of Katrina, the mainstream U.S. media won praise for finally daring to criticize the Bush administration. Of a readiness to analyze deep flaws in the U.S. system, however, there is little sign. The exception is when it comes to race and poverty, issues raised so glaringly by Katrina that only a totalitarian system could avoid mentioning them.
In the aftermath of Katrina, there is a range of issues on which the silence of most of the U.S. media has been striking even for a seasoned observer of the American scene. Among these is the political patronage system, in the areas of jobs and financial allocations. Criticism has been directed at the Bush administration, quite rightly, for its appointment of unqualified political cronies to senior positions. What no one is asking is why the U.S., alone among developed countries, has such an extensive system of political appointments to vital and highly technical government jobs. Such a question would be considered to reflect lack of patriotism. The political parties obviously cannot raise this question because they are both dependent on patronage to raise funds and gain support. The think-tanks cannot discuss it because too many of their members dream of becoming assistant deputy something or other after the next elections. But at least the media should be able to talk about this.
Similarly, both Congress and the Democratic politicians of Louisiana have been criticized, quite rightly, for senators' colossal diversion of scarce federal funds to pork-barrel projects in their states -- something that contributed directly to the disaster in New Orleans. But no one asks why the U.S. has a pork-barrel system on this scale.
The inability to compare the U.S. to other countries also applies to discussion of global warming and energy conservation. After Katrina, these issues cannot be ignored. But the U.S. public cannot be told how isolated internationally America is on this question. Media discussion too often takes the form of a rigged debate in which scientific evidence for global warming is set against scientific opponents of this thesis -- regardless of the fact that the first position has broad international support, while the second is held essentially by isolated individuals.
If a crisis on the scale of 1929-32 strikes the U.S. tomorrow, the country would not find an FDR with a New Deal program to run against the Republican's Herbert Hoover. It would have a timid and ineffective Hoover for the Democrats running against a Republican Calvin Coolidge, a hidebound defender of the worst aspects of the existing system. If that had been the choice in 1932, the very foundations of the American state would eventually have been in peril.
--The writer is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation and author of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism.