[lbo-talk] The DLC takeover of the Democratic Party

Marv Gandall marvgand2 at gmail.com
Sun Nov 9 07:43:18 PST 2014


Here’s a link to an excellent background piece on how “the Democratic elites ensconced in the law firms, foundations, banks, and media executive suites” moved to dismantle the social and regulatory reforms of the New Deal and previous Democratic Party administrations under the tutelage of a consummate insider, Al From.

Like so many accounts of political change, however, Stoller's review of From's memoir attributes too much to the role of individuals without taking into account that construction of the new ideological framework and party structures - not only within the DP but also in European social democratic parties - was mostly owing to the decades-long decline in the economic weight and political influence of the trade unions resulting from globalization, tech change, and other factors.

The greatly altered balance of forces between capital and labour was inevitably reflected at the political level in these left-centre parties in the emergence of the Clintons, Blairs, Schroders, and Hollandes and their full abandonment of a shrinking trade union base in favour of an increasingly dominant professional and corporate wing out of whose ranks they emerged.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/matt-stoller-democratic-party-acts-way.html



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