<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller>I get the sense there
is something more than the middle at stake. I don't know if I would use
the world "new", the word late or advanced maybe better describes what
seems to be going on. There does seem to be a different way in which
action is being discussed that is different from the more conservative
economic hand off and the more "liberal" hands on.
</smaller></fontfamily></excerpt>
I'm currently researching the history of US political parties,
particularly the Democrats (under the heading of "Third Way" politics).
The difference between what the US polity considers to be "conservative"
and "liberal" behaviour in politics still surprises me, as does the US
definition of "Left" and "Right". In Australia and Europe, conservative
behaviour would be "hands-on". We would define conservative behaviour as
an emphasis on the importance of institutions, especially government,
church, and the traditional family unit in controlling mores, policies,
and laws. Liberalism, on the other hand, emphasises the importance of the
individual and her or his freedom and thus would favour a laissez-faire
approach to life, liberty, the economy, and law: hands off.
Our Left and Right has traditionally been a division between those
(Labo[u]r) parties who favour the conditions of workers and the
Liberal/Conservatives who pander to the interests of Capital. The
historical traditions of the US are fairly unique in terms of western
politics.
After all that, I agree with you. It's not the middle that's at stake.
It's what you say here:
<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller>The economic sphere
itself is being sold as the one that can solve the social problems.
</smaller></fontfamily></excerpt>
Indeed: the privatisation of everything, even of "the public" itself. Of
course, this is such a paradoxical state of affairs for we primarily
social animals that I don't think it can go on for too much longer. It's
like the land enclosures between the late 15th and mid-17th Century. What
was once "free" is now free as a bird, ready to be captured, purchased,
and owned. That's why the economic sphere is doing so well: there are so
many intent on selling themselves to it for the best price they can get,
hence the fecund labour market.
<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller>I was recently reading
Brint on professionalism and he hinted towards the "neoliberalism" today
being linked to 60's progressivism rather than conservatism perse. Many
of the neoliberal reforms - school choice, decentralism, corporations in
schools - were taken from non-profit activist organizations. Many of the
so called conservatives, at least in my state reflect proudly on their
60's activism and see it related to their 90's more conservative
activism.</smaller> <smaller>Much of neo-liberalism has a fantasy of
sorts of pre-Roosevelt America when things were "local" and community
based while forgetting the consequences of that time. So much stuff in
education lately speaks of that "community" thing as if it was
oppositional to social control.
</smaller></fontfamily></excerpt>
I call this the "Heidegger's Hippies" syndrome. The comfort of suburban
four-wheel-drivedom is much more conducive to laissez-faire attitudes and
"community values" (which is really just the logical extension of Bush's
"Third Sector" policies) than it is to rebelling against whatever it is
that gets you a four-wheel-drive and a nice home ... best to keep quiet
about inequality once a certain level of income is achieved, or so it
seems. Anyway, from an article in the paper today by one Deroy Murdock,
it seems that all is well because "poor families [in the US] today live
about as well as middle-class households did in 1970".
This is an empirically derived truth, according to Murdock: "In 1970, for
instance, only 34% of households had colour TVs. By the mid-1990s, 97.9
per cent did". He advances other unchallengeable evidence for widespread
well-being:
"Americans work fewer hours toiday to acquire life's needs and wants. In
1970, for instance, a middle-income worker laboured 24 minutes to phone
coast-to-coast for three minutes. Today, that call costs two minutes of
labour. Cox believes that Americans have gained so much free time at home
that they stay at work to socialise with their friends at the office".
Thus, he argues, "a free society should focus on the absolute well-being
of the poor rather than the relative wealth of the rich", and that
"class-warfare rhetoric belongs on the ash heap of history next to the
Berlin Wall".
Marvellous stuff. The only failure in America today, says Murdock (again
quoting Cox - the Dallas Federal Resrve's Chief Economist [ie high
priest]), is the public education system: "First they [children] couldn't
do math ... then they couldn't write a paragraph ... then they couldn't
write a sentence. Now they can't spell". His answer? "The disciplining
forces of competition." [Murdock, D. (May 13, 1999). The poor getting
richer in the US. _The Australian Financial Review_, p. 20].
How surprising.
>>>>
<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller> Maybe its the Y2K
thing, but it seems the clocks are being turned back a hundred years or
so.</smaller>
</fontfamily></excerpt><fontfamily><param>Arial</param>
</fontfamily>I quite agree. Batten the hatches and pass the call warrants
page. I'm putting my money into monkeys, not bananas.
Phil
Phil Graham
p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html
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"Another damned fat book, eh, Mr Gibbon? Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr Gibbon?" - The Duke of Gloucester to Edward Gibbon upon the publication of "Decline and Fall".
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