Neo-liberalism

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed May 19 06:12:15 PDT 1999


Bert Davis wrote:


>In my youth Liberal Democrats believed in unions....

Well, yes and no. During the Great Sitdown Strikes that Friend of Labor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was in public maintaining neutrality. In private he was phoning Governor Murphy of Michigan (one of the *very* few Democrats in this century to conform to Bert's understanind) urging Murphy to call out the National Guard and suppress the strikes.

When that great liberal and Friend of Labor ran for his first major elective office, Mayor of Minneapolis, the unions, throwing their support behind him, asked only *one* favor: that he give them veto power over his selection of Chief of Police. (*Not*, note, that he accept their positive choice, merely that he not appoint someone they hated and feared.) He didn't even notify them in advance of his selection: he appointed a man favored by the Chamber of Commerce.

The term "McCarthy Era" is a distortion of history. The events summarized by the label should properly be called the "Truman Era."

This is just a slight beginning. "Neo-liberal" is not really so misleading a

reference to the U.S. liberal (Democratic) tradition.

Carrol



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