Death of the Liberal Class - Hardcover

Hedges, Chris

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1568586442 ISBN 13: 9781568586441

Publisher: Nation Books, 2010

Synopsis

The liberal class plays a vital role in a democracy. It gives moral legitimacy to the state. It makes limited forms of dissent and incremental change possible. The liberal class posits itself as the conscience of the nation. It permits us, through its appeal to public virtues and the public good, to define ourselves as a good and noble people. Most importantly, on behalf of the power elite the liberal class serves as bulwarks against radical movements by offering a safety valve for popular frustrations and discontentment by discrediting those who talk of profound structural change. Once this class loses its social and political role then the delicate fabric of a democracy breaks down and the liberal class, along with the values it espouses, becomes an object of ridicule and hatred. The door that has been opened to proto-fascists has been opened by a bankrupt liberalism

The Death of the Liberal Class examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues there are five pillars of the liberal establishment – the press, liberal religious institutions, labor unions, universities and the Democratic Party— and that each of these institutions, more concerned with status and privilege than justice and progress, sold out the constituents they represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.

About this title

About the Author

Chris Hedges, currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute, a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. Hedges has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, where he spent fifteen years. He is the author of the best selling War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, which draws on his experiences in various conflicts to describe the patterns and behavior of nations and individuals in wartime.

Hedges, the son of a Presbyterian minister, has a B.A. in English Literature from Colgate University and a Master of Divinity from Harvard University. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard during the academic year of 1998-1999. He has a strong grounding in the classics and knows Greek and Latin, as well as Arabic, French and Spanish. He currently writes for numerous publications including Foreign Affair.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I / Resistance
 
To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate
of human beings and their natural environment, indeed,
even of the amount and use of purchasing power, would
result in the demolition of society. For the alleged commodity
“labor power” cannot be shoved about, used indiscriminately,
or even left unused, without affecting the human individual
who happens to be the bearer of this peculiar commodity. In
disposing of a man’s labor power the system would, incidentally,
dispose of the physical, psychological, and moral entity
of “man” attached to the tag. Robbed of the protective covering
of cultural institutions, human beings would perish from
the effects of social exposure; they would die as the victims of
acute social dislocation through vice, perversion, crime, and
starvation. Nature would be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods
and landscapes defiled, rivers polluted, military
safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and raw material
destroyed.
—Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation1
 
 
ERNEST LOGAN BELL, an unemployed twenty-five-year-old Marine Corps veteran, walks along Route 12 in Upstate New York. A large American flag is strapped to the side of his green backpack. There is a light drizzle and he is wearing a green Army poncho. Short, muscular, and affable, with his brown hair in a close military crop, Bell tells me when I stop my car that he is on a six-day, ninety-mile, self-styled “Liberty Walk” from Binghamton to Utica. He plans to mount a quixotic campaign to challenge Democratic incumbent Rep. Michael Arcuri in the 24th Congressional District as the Republican candidate. Bell has camped out along the road for three nights and stayed in cheap motels the other nights. He opposes the health-care bill recently passed by the Democratic-majority Congress, calls for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, advocates the abolishment of the Federal Reserve, is against the Federal Government’s Wall Street bailouts, and wants to see immediate government relief for workers, including himself, trapped in prolonged unemployment. He carries a handwritten sign: “End the Fed,” echoing the title of a book by U.S. Representative Ron Paul he keeps in his backpack, along with a copy of U.S. Constitution for Dummies by Michael Arnheim. He says he plans to deliver Paul’s book to Arcuri’s office in Utica.
 
“I just walked through the town of Norwich,” he says as a car passes and the driver honks in support, “and there is a strong Tea Party movement there”:
 
The Tea Party movement, for the most part, is just a bunch of disgruntled
Americans. They know something is wrong and they are
ready to be engaged. A lot of the people in my area who are in the Tea
Party are Democrats. People are confused. They are shell-shocked.
They don’t know what to think. But acting like these problems started
January 20 [the date of the presidential inauguration] is absurd. To
single out the current president and not the presidents before him is
not productive for trying to figure out what is going on.2
 
Bell, who lives in Lansing, New York, is the new face of resistance. He is young, at home in the culture of the military, deeply suspicious of the Federal Government, dismissive of the liberal class, unable to find work, and angry. He swings between right-wing and left-wing populism, expressing admiration for both Paul and U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich, as well as the Tea Party movement. He started out as a supporter of John McCain in the last presidential election but soured on the Arizona senator and the Republican Party’s ties to Wall Street. He ended up not voting in that election. He has raised about $1,000 from neighbors and friends for his own campaign. Adept at martial arts, he made it to the semifinals of the 2010 Army National Guard Combative Championship at Fort Benning in Georgia, where, in his last bout, he suffered a broken nose, bruised his opponent’s ribs and thighs, and lost in a split decision.
 
“I am truly terrified when I think about our future,” he says:
 
I believe all signs point to a real systemic economic collapse in the
near future, maybe even before the midterm elections. I believe this is
why many incumbents are stepping down. They seem to know what
is coming and of course the rats are jumping ship and taking their
pensions with them. There will be nothing the government or the Fed
can do to slow the pain, no more tricks in the bag. I assure you it’s
going to hurt everyone, except of course, the corporate and banking
elite. I say let the empire collapse; sometimes we must die to be
reborn. The political system as it stands offers little hope for influencing
real change or social justice. I propose we attempt to reverse this
coup d’état by attempting a coup of our own. First, we must try to
retake the traditional means of control, power and discourse by
restoring integrity to our sold-out democratic election system. Unfortunately,
this will probably do little good but it is a worthy effort. It is
our patriotic duty to resist tyranny. We must break these chains of
oppression and restore our government to principles based on liberty
and justice for all. I am not confident that standing outside buildings
with signs is going to provide any fundamental power shifts, as power
is not often transferred without a struggle. Inalienable rights are not a
courtesy of the Federal Government. We must stand in the streets and
refuse to be silenced. We must reject corporate-controlled politics
and focus on rebuilding a localized political structure and society. A
revolution is the only alternative to complete surrender and defeat.
Cold, hard suffering and pain will be the only hope for a real revolution,
and this is all but guaranteed. At this point protest must be
transformed into acts of defiance. We must be bold.
 
Bell grew up in Oakwood, a small town in East Texas between Dallas and Houston. His father struggled with alcoholism and is now in recovery. His parents, who frequently fought, separated, and reunited, divorced when Bell was thirteen. His mother was left to raise Bell, along with his younger brother (currently in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division) and his younger sister in a one-bedroom apartment. There was little money, and his mother worked sporadically at odd jobs. There were eighteen people in his high-school graduating class. With few jobs in Oakwood, Bell, along with several of his classmates, joined the military.
 
“My father worked two jobs to support us; he suffered from the disease of alcoholism but is a good guy and tried to be supportive father,” Bell says:
 
My mom had her own set of problems. She is now living in a oneroom
shack. She had breast cancer four years ago and has no insurance
and is living in poverty. I know the system is not working. She
lives at the little house, a one-bedroom cabin on her mother’s land,
where me and my brother lived off and on when my parents were
arguing. We lived in several different houses and apartments with
both my mom and dad. I left home when I was seventeen, drifting
between friends’ houses, then moved back to Oakwood, where I finished
high school, living with my grandparents, who had a profound
effect on my life and values. My life was inconsistent, chaotic, and
working-class. I believe this environment helped develop my character
and perspective. I have to give credit where it’s due. My dad tried.
 
“You couldn’t stay in Oakwood, Texas, and have a job,” he adds.
 
Bell moved to upstate New York two years ago after leaving the Marine Corps to be near Shianne, his three-year-old daughter. He and the girl’s mother are separated. Bell found work as a carpenter with a traveling construction crew. He earned $14.50 an hour and could sometimes make as much as $800 a week. Then the financial meltdown knocked the wind out of the local economy.
 
“Everybody in my apartment building has had their hours cut, are unemployed, or have taken minimum-wage jobs,” he says. “I was laid off last year. I try to find work as an independent carpenter. I don’t have health insurance.”
 
The dearth of work, which left him attempting to survive at times on $600 a month, saw him enlist last year in the New York National Guard, even though it means almost certain deployment to Afghanistan. The enticement of a $20,000 signing bonus was too lucrative to pass up. The National Guard unit he joined recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan.
 
“We are training to go back to Afghanistan,” he says. “The fact that they are still using Army National Guard, state-level troops, to police the streets of Afghanistan is not good. These units are really overstretched. We do not get the benefits. We don’t get health insurance like active-duty military. But the guard gets deployed just as much. Some of these guys have been on three and four tours.
 
“I got out of the Marine Corps and went back to Texas for ten months and was involved in the John McCain campaign,” he says:
 
I really got disillusioned with the neoconservatism. I had never been
involved in politics. The idea that we needed all these troops all around
the world “defending freedom,” as they called it, when we were actually
engaged in nation-building and supporting special interests that drive
these wars, was something I began to understand. As far as foreign and
economic policy, I could see there was no difference between the two
main political parties. There is a false left/right paradigm which diverts
the working class from the real reasons for their hardships.
 
“The winters [in New York State] are really hard,” Bell says:
 
There are less jobs and the heating costs are high. I pay about $200 a
month for electric and gas. I live really cheaply. I don’t have cable. I
don’t go out or spend money that is not necessary. It is a struggle. But
at least I have not had to devote forty hours a week to a minimumwage
job that does not pay me a living wage. People here are really
hurting. The real underemployment rate must be at least twenty percent.
A lot of people are working part-time jobs when they want fulltime
jobs. There are many people like me, independent contractors
and small business owners, who can’t file for unemployment insurance.
Unemployment [coverage] is not available to me because I
worked as a 1099, a self-employed contractor, even when I worked for
the construction company.
 
“People are scared,” he says. “They want to live their lives, raise their children, and be happy. This is not possible. They don’t know if they can make their next mortgage payment. They see their standard of living going down.”
 
Bell says he and those around him are being pushed off the edge. He says he fears the social and political repercussions.
 
“I hope there is a populist revolution,” he says:
 
We have to take the corporate bailouts and the money we are sending
overseas and use that money in our communities. If this does not
happen there will be more anger and eventually violence. When
people lose everything they start to lose it. When you can’t find a job,
even though you look repeatedly, it leads to things like random
shootings and suicides. We will see acts of domestic terrorism. The
state will erode more of our civil liberties to control mass protests.
We are seeing some student protests, but we will see these on a wider
scale. I hope the protests will be constructive. I hope people will not
resort to extreme measures. But people will do what they have to do
to survive. This may mean things like food riots. The political establishment
better work very fast to take the pressure off.
 
 
Anger and a sense of betrayal: these are what Ernest Logan Bell and tens of millions of other disenfranchised workers express. These emotions spring from the failure of the liberal class over the past three decades to protect the minimal interests of the working and middle class as corporations dismantled the democratic state, decimated the manufacturing sector, looted the U.S. Treasury, waged imperial wars that can neither be afforded nor won, and gutted the basic laws that protected the interests of ordinary citizens. Yet the liberal class continues to speak in the prim and obsolete language of policies and issues. It refuses to defy the corporate assault. A virulent right wing, for this reason, captures and expresses the legitimate rage articulated by the disenfranchised. And the liberal class has become obsolete even as it clings to its positions of privilege within liberal institutions.
 
Classical liberalism was formulated largely as a response to the dissolution of feudalism and church authoritarianism. It argued for noninterference or independence under the rule of law. It incorporates a few aspects of ancient Athenian philosophy as expressed by Pericles and the Sophists, but was a philosophical system that marked a radical rupture with both Aristotelian thought and medieval theology. Classical liberalism has, the philosopher John Gray writes,
 
four principle features, or perspectives, which give it a recognizable
identity: it is individualist, in that it asserts the moral primacy of the
person against any collectivity; egalitarian, in that it confers on all
human beings the same basic moral status; universalist, affirming the
moral unity of the species; and meliorist, in that it asserts the openended
improvability, by use of critical reason, of human life.3
 
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), John Locke (1632–1704), and Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) laid the foundations for classical liberalism. The work of these theorists was expanded in the eighteenth century by the Scottish moral philosophers, the French philosophes, and the early architects of American democracy. The philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) redefined liberalism in the nineteenth century to call for the redistribution of wealth and the promotion of the welfare state.
 
The liberal era, which flourished in the later part of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth, was characterized by the growth of mass movements and social reforms that addressed working conditions in factories, the organizing of labor unions, women’s rights,universal education, housing for the poor, public health campaigns, and socialism. This liberal era effectively ended with World War I. The war, which shattered liberal optimism about the inevitability of human progress, also consolidated state and corporate control over economic, political, cultural, and social affairs. It created mass culture, fostered through the consumer society the cult of the self, led the nation into an era of permanent war, and used fear and mass propaganda to cow citizens and silence independent and radical voices within the liberal class. Franklin Delano R...

About this edition

• Publisher: Nation Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1568586442
• ISBN 13: 9781568586441
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256