Somebody Somebody writes:
Yeah, but given the utter absence of left-wing or working class consciousness in this country - one obvious metric is strike activity, or the lack thereof - Obama's been about as progressive as we could hope for. I mean, Marxists can't have it both ways. You can't say,
oh, the state is the executive committee of the ruling class and only responds to pressure from below, and then condemn the government for not
being more leftist than the average reality TV watching American.
Actually, I would argue that Obama is more self-consciously leftist than
the average U.S. citizen. Sure, you can cherry pick polling data, but in terms of a consistent world-view and policy orientation, this administration has probably been more progressive than a solid majority of this country. Most Americans aren't in favor of government spending right now, and are even retrospectively opposed to the original recovery
act.
I reply:
I don't concur 100%, but the argument is certainly valid enough to be worth considering. Yes, whenever I come across a "blame the sheeple" screed in a comments section online (usually vented by some way-out species of conspiracy theorist), my structural Marxist instinct kicks in, and cautions me against such a dismissive and simplistic approach. What about the bipartisan commitment to neo-liberalism and empire, regardless of the (ill-formed) objections of the populace? But let's face it: the institutional barriers to class consciousness, democratic will formation, and leftward movement have multiplied tenfold these last 30 years, especially the last 10-15 years or so. And I'm reluctant to assume the pose of middle-aged (and educated middle-class!) worrywart, or to fall back on anecdotal evidence, but I suspect that part of the story is the massive subjection of the populace to the ever-expanding infotainment complex. If there were actually an independent, thoughtful, and well-funded radical base in social movements and think tanks and universities (yeah, right!) willing and able to deeply explore this question, we wouldn't have to rely on the random speculations of a few alienated and (sometimes) unhinged sorts warbling on about "mind control" and whatnot. But there isn't, so we do. As someone who is still clinging (barely) to life in academia, I am constantly amazed (yes, naively so) at how many potentially revelatory research projects about the "predicament we're in" are out there, and at how NONE of them are ever explored. (Like I said, my amazement is naive.)