> The effect:
>
> Obama Doesn’t ‘Begrudge’ Bonuses for Blankfein, Dimon
> The cause:
>
> In a Message to Democrats, Wall St. Sends Cash to G.O.P.
In theory, with popular mass support backing him, Obama could easily give the bankers the finger. Clearly, Obama has not chosen that path.
Why?
There are at least three risks here: (1) the risk that capitalism may not be reformed and thus invite upcoming catastrophic crises, (2) the risk that the capitalists may oppose the reforms tooth and nail, and (3) the risk of independent political action by working people. What is Obama saying with his actions? That he doesn't care about risk (1), while risk (2) is paramount? How about risk (3)? An argument is that, if he were afraid of the working people raising independently, he would be trying to preempt it by riding the "populist" wave? Presumably, like FDR did in the 1930s, when that risk was apparent. There was a Soviet Union, etc.
So, maybe risk (3) is not apparent to Obama, because there's no left, no Soviet Union, no serious union movement, etc. So, that's out of the question. After all, the basic parameters of the ideological climate in the U.S. are still those set by Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Who cares about a potential working class rebellion? This hypothesis sounds reasonable.
However, there's another possibility, as far fetched as it may seem. Maybe, it is not so much that -- as Doug recently wrote -- the left views the U.S. working people as a sleeping radical giant. Maybe it is Obama and the Democrats who view it that way! Maybe they think the FDR played with fire in the 1930s. So, they are not willing to taunt the working people as FDR felt he had to back in the 1930s. Better to keep the giant dormant.
But is it only the Democrats who act as if? The Republicans (not only tea baggers, but the Wall Street Journal, etc.) seem to think that Marxism and socialism are still serious latent threats. They continue to attack Marx, socialism, and communism relentlessly. Discrediting Marxism, socialism, etc. Why beat the dead horse, if indeed dead? Maybe they are on to something.
I mean, Doug is right in saying that we should admit the facts about the current ideological state of working people. But their readiness to follow the left doesn't depend on that alone. Maybe their situation is approaching a historical blind alley, and there's nowhere else to go for working people but to something where the left can regain the initiative. That's why the right wingers continue to exercise Marxism and socialism. It's as if they see something we don't.
I don't know. But, in my historical materialism without detailed history, I find this tenet to be pretty reasonable:
As a rule, on the arc of history, humans (including Americans) do not just adapt to their environment. Instead, humans (and this is embedded in that process we call human labor) have a tendency to conform their environment to their designs. Clearly, at some point, the impetus to submit the world to their intentions will include their social environment itself, their own social institutions. So, no matter how buried this tendency may be under the dead weight of daily lives led within the narrowest ideological horizon, it will end up asserting itself. At some point, people are going to say, "Hey, if we can create iPhones and engineer our genes, we can certainly redesign our economy and other social institutions to enhance our wellbeing, we can certainly control the process democratically, etc." This does not have to happen soon, but unless human history reverses itself altogether, i.e. we descend into full fledged barbarianism, there's nowhere else to go but in that direction. In this sense, as U.S.ers and as a species, we're closer now to a sustainable type of socialism than we've ever been. The political establishment seems to act as if this were the case, even if we still don't. No?