5. März 2009

The Neoliberalism of Barack Obama

While reading about Obama's budget that stresses some interesting and important points like health care for instance (but contains also a further raise in the military spending) I certainly wasn't thinking about class warfare like conservative critics. I rather thought of an article I have read last year before the presidential election. I present you this text by Walter Benn Michaels in the New Left Review in parts because it makes a good point by exposing Obama's and Clinton's neoliberalism and the root of inequality - capitalism - instead of being fooled by progress concerning race and gender camouflaging rising inequality.

After half a century of anti-racism and feminism, the us today is a less equal society than was the racist, sexist society of Jim Crow. Furthermore, virtually all the growth in inequality has taken place since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965—which means not only that the successes of the struggle against discrimination have failed to alleviate inequality, but that they have been compatible with a radical expansion of it. Indeed, they have helped to enable the increasing gulf between rich and poor.
Why? Because it is exploitation, not discrimination, that is the primary producer of inequality today. It is neoliberalism, not racism or sexism (or homophobia or ageism) that creates the inequalities that matter most in American society; racism and sexism are just sorting devices. In fact, one of the great discoveries of neoliberalism is that they are not very efficient sorting devices, economically speaking. (...) even though some capitalists may be racist, sexist and homophobic, capitalism itself is not. This is also why the real (albeit very partial) victories over racism and sexism represented by the Clinton and Obama campaigns are not victories over neoliberalism but victories for neoliberalism: victories for a commitment to justice that has no argument with inequality as long as its beneficiaries are as racially and sexually diverse as its victims. (...) It is the increasing gap between rich and poor that constitutes the inequality, and rearranging the race and gender of those who succeed leaves that gap untouched. In actually existing neoliberalism, blacks and women are still disproportionately represented both in the bottom quintile—too many—and in the top quintile—too few—of American incomes. In the neoliberal utopia that the Obama campaign embodies, blacks would be 13.2 per cent of the (numerous) poor and 13.2 per cent of the (far fewer) rich; women would be 50.3 per cent of both. For neoliberals, what makes this a utopia is that discrimination would play no role in administering the inequality; what makes the utopia neoliberal is that the inequality would remain intact. Worse: it is not just that the inequality remains intact but also—since it is no longer produced by discrimination—that it gets legitimated. (...) Americans still love to talk about the American Dream—as, in fact, do Europeans. But the Dream has never been less of a reality than it is today. Not just because inequality is so high, but also because social mobility is so low (...) But it is not discrimination that has produced the almost unprecedented levels of inequality Americans face today; it is capitalism. (...) the answer to the question, ‘Why do American liberals carry on about racism and sexism when they should be carrying on about capitalism?’, is pretty obvious: they carry on about racism and sexism in order to avoid doing so about capitalism. Either because they genuinely do think that inequality is fine as long as it is not a function of discrimination (in which case, they are neoliberals of the right). Or because they think that fighting against racial and sexual inequality is at least a step in the direction of real equality (in which case, they are neoliberals of the left). Given these options, perhaps the neoliberals of the right are in a stronger position—the economic history of the last thirty years suggests that diversified elites do even better than undiversified ones. But of course, these are not the only possible choices.

via American Leftist

3 Kommentare:

Scott Neigh hat gesagt…

I think this analysis misses the point...framing it as an either/or question is a guarantee that we're going to lose. It should be both/and.

This text assumes a liberal definition of racism and sexism. It also assumes that anti-racist and anti-sexist consciousness and struggle are by definition liberal. Which is utter nonsense. And in situations where such struggles are dominated by liberal politics and privileged members of each group, the problem is the liberalism, not the anti-racism and anti-sexism per se.

Also, I happen to be reading a book by David Theo Goldberg at the moment sketching out some of the dynamics of racism in various regions of the world in the neoliberal era. I have criticisms of it, including inadequate attention to intersection with other oppressions and with the everyday mechanics of capitalist social relations. However, he is quite convincing in demonstrating that racism is no less essential to capital than it has ever been. The thing is, under neoliberalism, racism has become privatized and in many ways made less visible. Less visible but no less important to global processes of accumulation, and no less devastating to those who experience it.

Anti-capitalists who do not bring anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-heterosexist struggle into the very heart of everything they do -- including those who do not do so in the name of the kind of crude class-first politics this analysis seems to argue for -- will remain forever fragmented and irrelevant.

fabelhaftewelt hat gesagt…

Thanks Scott for your clarifying critique.
I wanted to stress that Obama is not much of a 'Leftist' as he seems too often in the media.
You are right. I am wondering if you can say that capitalism is not racist per se. Even if it is not it has in its history very well known to integrate racist domination and gender discrimination in its general exploitation patterns.
And your last paragraph is crucial: We definitely have to unite forces and fight against all forms of oppression if we want to win.

Anonym hat gesagt…

...racism is -no less essential- to capital than it has ever been.

says n o t

that capitalism is not racist per se

 
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