This, in a nutshell, is the worldview of the Sensible Liberal. It's the belief that there are Sensible Policies concocted by Wise Men (and women), preferably ones with advanced degrees, which are Right and True and Good. Wise Men may disagree a bit about the means, and we should throw a few conferences to hash these differences out. Politics and ideologues who do not share the ideology of the Wise Men, who of course are not really tainted by ideology, get in the way of enacting policies which are Sensible... Craig Brown
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I agree.
Brad Delong used to be on this list, and might still be or occasionally visit the archives. When he first started posting, I thought he was a somewhat highhanded academic but sensible liberal, more or less along the lines he characterized himself in your opening quote.
But it so happened that 9/11 occurred and Brad more or less dissembled his genial, sensible liberal self over the event. He became quite calculatingly nasty, at least with me. He was deeply offended that I characterized 9/11 as a richly deserved blowback on the US Empire.
In Brad's view, the well ordered and sensible liberal world he imagined the US embodied (false), was outrageously assaulted by completely evil Islamic fanatics (true). Since the US was a sensible, well ordered liberal state, in effect an unblemished innocent, everyone in the US who wasn't outraged by this terrorist atrocity and eager for mass vengeance must be wholly malevolent and supported the enemies of Camelot. Camelot is short hand for The New World Order that Brad thought he was building in the Clinton administration. Of course this was Camelot for Brad, since he enjoyed a professor at UCB in the newly constructed Haas building that houses the Dept of Economics. He probably didn't realize that my first job at UCB was in the old student hospital (Hearst endowment) that was torn down to built this Haas endowment. (The Haas family owned Levi-Strauss, and the Haas foundation is from their fortune.)
The trouble is, the US is not a sensible, liberal, technocratic Camelot, an unblemished innocent in a world of vicious thugs and criminals. The US got rich and big by being criminally calculating and hugely nasty, brutish, and mean (Fill in slavery, Native American atrocities, and robber baron details here). The US sure didn't get its global power by following technocratically enlightened policies that focused on sensible and liberal solutions for the greater good of humanity. Nope. It got to be an empire the old fashioned way. And this is the fundamental contradiction that Brad could not assimilate---even though he was working in a miniature exercise/example of it on a public university campus.
The sensible, tolerant liberals who believed they were building a rational New World Order had their presumptions of a benign imperialism ripped apart by 9/11 --- if only for a few critical moments they must have realized, empire building creates dangerous enemies. In the old 19thC empires, the players knew this was the price and they paid it---although they were not quite ready for the Russian Revolution, WWI, the rise of the Third Reich, WWII, and half a century of pay back from their former colonies.
Now, back to current US empire. Much of the rest of the world mouthed condolences and regret of course over the `tragedy' of 9/11. But I suspect (because I thought so myself) they were probably snickering under their breath: you asked for it, like all bullies do. Some of the victims of the New World Order in Palestinian neighborhoods and elsewhere took to the streets and cheered foolishly.
(Hush fools. Nobody supposed to snicker if Mister Charlie gets tossed off his horse. No Sir. Nobody snickering round here. No way. No how.)
I am bring all this up in the context of Brad Delong, because I think he illustrates the dilemma that liberal Democrats like him face. They are trapped between the contradictory facets of the US empire noted above, and worse, they are largely responsible for creating the newer embodiment of these conditions in the first place.
Our current crop of Democrats some how realize that their sensible, technocratic neoliberalism that has wiped out whole working class communities across the country, while exploiting the cheap labor of millions in foreign countries is a lie. They excuse themselves by claiming that these are the short term costs for the long term greater good. But there is no greater good in this policy maze. There's nothing down here but a dark and foul smelling rat warren with rotten old pig capitalism, pumped up on hormones and fed genetically engineered corn to reach imperialistic proportions. The only hope is the old fat grunt gags to death on his own toxic shit before the rest of us do. This collection of policies enrich the rich, enslave the poor and immiserate the rest of us. Fucking Duh.
And...sooner or later we are going to be paying big time. Frankly 9/11 was a pin prick and should have been taken in stride--perps tracked down with the usual international police methods, places like the Stans (Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc) made the target of CIA covert ops, and let's move on. The real tragedy of 9/11 was the Bush administration had no foriegn policy, and this became their cause. My first thought as Bush started his ramp up to a war against Islam, that this was like Teddy Roosevelt avenging the Main in Havana harbor---the kick off excuse for the Spanish-American war. Ah, what a jolly little war, let have another. And as we moved into the Pacific taking the Philippines, and other asorted islands guess who was watching it all through heavy lenses? Well the cagy old Imperial Japanese admirality...
I know this empire business isn't news, but it wasn't news when neoliberals like Delong pushed these policies as the absurd solution to US social and economic problems in the first place. What? There's no US History requirement for a PhD in economics? Nobody knew about the robber barons, western railroad swindles, Chinese labor camps, Mexican land grabs, anarchists, terror bombings, socialists, labor unions, communists, etc, etc?
Joanna notes, ``But if I may paraphrase the above: `First we (white wonks who have made it to the top of the meritocracy) agree on what to do, then we spin it in a way that the stupider ideologues can understand and use, so that the even stupider populace can be led to believe that they are freely choosing their fate.' ''
I used to think that. But the longer I live under this tower of pig shit, I keep wondering, well, gee guys, this stuff stinks, here, sniff this, and this, and this. They spin and spin and spin and when that doesn't work they start singing, la, la, la, la, la, to drown it all out. Somehow these reactions don't betray cynicism, but something else. I don't know what.
It reminds me of adolescent denial. Yes, it's seven o'clock in the morning, but I told you I would be home after mid-night. Yes, I smell like a brewery, yes I am covered in vomit, but I absolutely didn't not get drunk and pass out in my own vomit. I swear to god.
So I am honestly perplexed. I've tried to explain this collection of self-deluded policies, aka neoliberalism to myself along the cynical lines Joanna points out. I've tried to sort them out with rational self-interest. But that doesn't work either. Rational self-interest with just a modicum of history should tell these well appointed ministers we are just beginning to reap the kind of social, political and economic chaos their great-grandfathers did before WWI.
The only difference I can see between then 19thC and now is at least they were building an empire and we seem to be destroying one.
CG
(I wasn't going to post this, but Ravi posted something on this tread, so what the hell...)