An excerpt follows.]
President Clinton has used his considerable charms to sell the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China by promising that free trade will mean more and better jobs for American workers. They have not believed him, and for the most part they have been right not to do so.
Instead of personal prosperity, traditional working-class voters get condescending lectures about the virtues of free trade, often couched in language suggesting that anyone who doubts the benefits of globalization is a knuckle-dragging mouth-breather too dim to understand the works of David Ricardo. In postindustrial Washington, Clinton and his favorites (wearing blue jeans to seem folksy) dine ... on barbecue at a Democratic National Committee dinner that raises $25.5 million, much of it in $500,000 contributions, for the party that supposedly represents the common man.
Labor leaders boycotted the event to protest the Clinton administration's support for normal trade relations with China, and also threatened to withdraw support from Democratic congressional candidates. "This is a betrayal," George Becker, president of the United Steelworkers of America, said of the China vote. Stephen Yokich, president of the United Auto Workers, suggested his union would back Ralph Nader for the presidency rather than Vice President Al Gore.
Clinton's faith in free trade may eventually prove correct; even now, the working class is just beginning to share in the economic gains of recent years. But in the short run, the Democrats, led by Gore (a far less persuasive salesman than Clinton), are seeking to retain the presidency and win back the House and Senate next November. Working people, their traditional base, do not appear to be especially enthusiastic, and the upper-middle-income suburbanites—"soccer moms"—their new infatuation, seem tempted by George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism."
In three of the books under review, there is a warning to Democrats, but one that may not be heeded as the millions of dollars in contributions roll in: though we may be living in a postindustrial society, for Democrats the key to winning elections still lies in serving the interests of members of the working class, providing them with government services that cannot be supplied fairly by the marketplace and restraining the excesses of unfettered capitalism.
[end]
Carl
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