T here’s never been much of a difference betw een the tw o
business parties, but over the years, w hat differences there w ere
have been disappearing.
In my view, the last liberal president w as Richard Nixon. Since
him, there’ve been nothing but conservatives (or w hat are called
“conservatives”). T he kind of gesture to liberalism that w as
required from the New Deal on became less necessary as new
w eapons of class w ar developed in the early 1970s.
For the last tw enty years, they’ve been used to bring about w hat
the business press openly calls “capital’s clear subjugation of labor.”
U nder those circumstances, you can drop the liberal w indow -
dressing.
Welfare capitalism w as introduced in order to undercut
democracy. If people are trying to take over some aspect of their
lives and there doesn’t seem any w ay to stop them, one standard
historical response has been to say, We rich folk will do it for you.
A classic example took place in Flint, Michigan, a tow n dominated by
General Motors, around 1910.
T here w as a good deal of socialist labor organizing there, and
plans had been developed to really take things over and provide
more democratic public services. After some hesitation, the
w ealthy businessmen decided to go along w ith the progressive line.
T hey said, Everything you’re saying is right, but we can do it a lot
better, because we have all this money. You want a park? Fine.
Vote for our candidate and he’ll put in a park.
T heir resources undermined and eliminated the incipient
democratic and popular structures. T heir candidate w on, and there
w as indeed w elfare capitalism...until it w asn’t needed any more, at
w hich point it w as dropped.
During the Depression, there w as again a live union movement in
Flint, and popular rights w ere again extended. But the business
counterattack began right after the Second World War. It took a
w hile this time, but by the 1950s, it w as getting somew here.
It slow ed somew hat in the 1960s, w hen there w as a lot more
ferment—programs like the War on Poverty, things coming out of
the civil rights movement—but by the early 1970s, it reached new
heights, and it’s been going pretty much fullsteam ever since.
T he typical picture painted by business propaganda since the
Second World War—in everything from television comedies to
ann
(Ann)
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