> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>> I would add that there is little evidence that general
>> public opinion (usually rather passive even if intense or emotional)
>> necessarily has much impact on government action.
>
> Then why do politicians study opinion polls on a minute-to-minute basis,
> in the most minute, excruciating detail, and spend millions of dollars on
> them?
>
> At the same time, I don't think anyone in the world believes public
> opinion "necessarily" has a lot of impact on what the government does. If
> you did a poll, for example, asking whether the central bank should in
> increase or decrease the collateral requirements on its open-market
> purchases of asset-backed securities, I doubt the results of the poll
> would ever have the slightest effect on what the Fed did.
=================================
But doesn't the US bourgeoisie itself have an interest in containing the
cost of healthcare - running well above that of single payer systems,
attributable to private control of US healthcare? If Obama's reforms
contribute to further waste, as is feared, are there limits, both political
and economic, to what the state can do in the way of raising taxes and
whittling away at Medicare and other benefit programs and raising taxes?
Perhaps not. But Obama is pushing his reform mostly on the basis that it will be cost-effective, so the issue is in the public realm and he will be judged on that basis.
Obama's incrementalist approach is quite in keeping with liberal and social democratic ideology. But, despite Carrol's skepticism and given the sentiment in the country, it seems to me that if the unions, AARP and allied organizations had organized a huge march on Washington around the theme of Medicare for Everyone, it would have had an effect on the administration and wavering Democrats. Many DP supporters at all levels have voiced public criticism of the administration's direction, and could have couched the action in terms of "support" for the President against "Republican obstructionism".
The public understands this issue on a gut level in a way it does not comprehend arcane Fed monetary policy. The bourgeoisie is generally more yielding in relation to social benefits, especially if they appear to promise long-term savings, than about public interference with central bank operations which more directly affect it's interests.