Running on Empty
So much for ecstatic modes of living.
Jay Cost
In 1969, a young Hillary Rodham was chosen to give a commencement address to the graduating class of Wellesley College, and she used the occasion to deliver some fairly radical remarks. She spoke of her generation feeling “that our prevailing, acquisitive, and competitive corporate life, including tragically the universities, is not the way of life for us. We’re searching for more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating modes of living.” She praised the student protest movement as “an attempt to forge an identity in this particular age” and said that she and her peers perceived society as hovering “between the possibility of disaster and the potentiality for imaginatively responding to men’s needs.”
To be sure, it was a confusing, middle-class, soft-New Left radicalism—hardly the stuff of the old farmer-labor coalition. But it was still a challenge to the established order. Surely, if those listening had been told that in half a century this young woman would be a candidate for president, they would have expected her to run as a radical.
But the opposite is true. Since she left the State Department, Hillary Clinton has been consumed with two decidedly nonradical activities: making as much money as possible and developing a precisely modulated candidacy, built on small ideas so as to cobble together a critical mass of voters. It’s a left-wing approach, for sure, but it is premised on a liberalism that views the status quo as mostly fine.
Somewhere along the line, Clinton left behind her youthful radicalism and embraced the assumptions of mainstream progressivism. And good for her. College life is lived in a bubble inside which it is easy to waste time indulging leftist nonsense. Growing up usually means leaving this behind.
Still, the juxtaposition of the youthful aspirations of Clinton in 1969 and the joyless, money-grubbing Clinton of today says something about progressivism. By embracing the “prevailing, acquisitive, and competitive corporate life,” progressive elites have made a lot of money, but they can no longer “imaginatively respond . . . to men’s needs.” Clinton, as presumptive nominee of the major progressive party, embodies this denatured idealism.
When it began, the progressive movement was actually a middle ground between early-20th-century “reactionaries,” who wanted to retain a corrupt status quo, and surging radical forces, notably agrarian populists and urban socialists. The progressives called for abandoning the Constitution’s limits on the national government. They believed fervently that an alliance between the state, business, farmers, and laborers could solve the nation’s problems. The progressives presumed to manage everything, from growing the economy to regulating business responsibly, providing social welfare, mitigating inequality, and combating corruption.
To a large extent, both parties have accepted the core assumptions of the progressive model. Much of the GOP’s domestic agenda during the George W. Bush administration—targeted tax credits, a Medicare prescription drug benefit, an expanded federal role in education, and substantial use of earmarks—was cast in this mold. It was progressive for Republicans to expand the scope of the state via a broad political alliance of “stakeholders,” even if they made heavier use of free market concepts than leftists and jilted many Democratic clients in the process.
Yet it is increasingly difficult to accept the premises of progressivism. Over the last 15 years, the economy has stagnated, inequality has worsened, cronyism is much worse than it was even in the Gilded Age, and the United States is now burdened by a large structural deficit that yearly adds to an already $18 trillion national debt. These problems can be traced, at least in part, to the inherent limitations of the progressive model.
Above all, progressivism requires an omnipotent government coordinating a broad alliance of factions for, it believes, the greater good. Over time, this approach tends to heighten inequality, as the groups with the resources to acquire influence win the most favors. It facilitates cronyism, as politicians cash in on their connections. It puts upward pressure on budget deficits, as the political incentives inevitably favor increasing expenditures without commensurately raising taxes. It constrains the options of policy-makers, as all proposals must win the consent of a vast array of clients. And it stifles reform, as stakeholder factions thwart changes that hurt their bottom lines, regardless of the public interest. Progressivism eventually produces sclerotic and corrupt government.
Early in the progressive movement, these problems were not evident because the number of clients was small. FDR had free rein to craft the New Deal. But adding faction after faction to the list of government clients constrained the scope of action for subsequent generations, making it ever more difficult for leaders to govern effectively. Eighty years after the New Deal, the range of policy options available to progressive politicians is very small indeed.
These limits were evident during the first two years of the Obama administration. In 2008, widespread Bush fatigue, a thin résumé, and the historic nature of his candidacy enabled Barack Obama to claim credibly that he would break with the past. But once in office, the limits of the progressive model proved decisive. Time and again, he endorsed legislation that highlighted progressivism’s worst aspects. He approved a nearly $1 trillion stimulus, a grab bag of giveaways to Democratic client groups. He signed Obamacare, an unfunded entitlement that bought off the medical services industry by coercing citizens to purchase overpriced health insurance. And he adopted the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, drafted with heavy input from Wall Street, which gave the biggest banks the protection of too-big-to-fail.
Of course, progressivism still works for some. The leaders of the movement do fine, even if they cannot improve the state of the union. As the list of interest groups clamoring for government favor gets longer, those in charge of dispensing goodies become more powerful. The industrious members of this elite caste are adept at monetizing their public authority.
Which brings us back to Hillary Rodham. As a student radical, she issued a (largely incoherent) challenge to the established powers. But by 1969 those powers were already thoroughly progressive and had been for a long time. They remain so today, and Hil-lary Clinton strives to helm the very power structure she once criticized.
The effects of her transformation are manifest. She has profited handsomely from her role in government. Yet what fresh vision does she offer? There is plenty of fear-mongering and naked pandering to Democratic constituencies, but where are her big ideas to address the great challenges of the day? She offers nothing of the sort, because progressivism no longer has room for sweeping change. It would only offend some valued stakeholder, and that is unacceptable. Perhaps if she could speechify like Obama and could still cast Bush as the national villain, she might mask the strictures of her ideology. But she can’t, so she appears to be what she actually is—rigid.
As a result, Clinton’s agenda is as small-minded as her bank account is fat. It is no coincidence that Bernie Sanders, the socialist, is drawing crowds that rival Clinton’s. American socialism might be wholly impractical, but it is less blinkered and grim than contemporary progressivism. One suspects that if the young Hillary Rodham could return today, she would show up cheering at a Sanders rally rather than dutifully falling in behind candidate Clinton. And who could blame her?
Jay Cost is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard and the author of A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption.
No comments:
Post a Comment