America is in crisis, politically, economically and socially. Such a declaration is not meant to scare or initiate hysteria, but to draw rational attention to the serious problems facing the United States. It is an objective conclusion that can be drawn from lived experience, mainstream media, academic literature and a seemingly omnipresent fear that permeates both public and private conversation. The fear is unspoken, but nonetheless palpable. It can be felt in the workplace, on the subway and in the streets. It is sometimes subtle and other times quite apparent, but in either case very much alive. At its most basic level, it is a fear of uncertainty, or alternatively a fear of certainly difficult times ahead.
The hyperbole that is the war on terror is in many ways both a manifestation of this fear and the oxygen that it breathes. What began as a legitimate concern for national security has morphed into a psychotic panic hell bent on eradicating an ideology from the face of earth. The result has been a decade of chasing terrorists around the globe in an attempt to flex American might while in actuality demonstrating American desperation. The various renditions of the national anthem and sport like cheers celebrating the death of America’s bogeyman bin Laden speak volumes to the extent of this desperation, which in the face of economic collapse and a dysfunctional democracy compelled fear stricken Americans across the country into the streets to trumpet a symbolic achievement and a false glory.
The conclusion to be drawn from America’s late night celebrations is that despite what Americans are willing to consciously admit we are very much afraid; and rightfully so. America is losing its position as global hegemon and with it its ability to provide the stability, security and comfort it once promised. The economic system that has propelled it to greatness is crumbling. The assumption that America truly maintains an equality of opportunity in its democratic process is false. The poverty rate is at a record high. By most international student assessments, America’s youth ranks in the bottom third among other similarly developed nations. In many cases higher education remains an unattainable goal with some 70% of enrolled students unable to pay for tuition up front. The U.S. health care system consistently ranks last among other rich countries in quality, access and efficiency, despite being the most expensive health care system in the world. Some 16% of Americans make less than fifty percent of the median income, the equivalent of about $25,000 annually. The total amount of consumer debt in the U.S. stands at $2.4 trillion translating to a per capita of nearly $8,000. The American Society of Civil Engineers grades America’s overall infrastructure a D with no particular category receiving above a C-. Stability, security and comfort have at once been revealed as fleeting ideals.
The political system is broken. What was once ‘intended’ to be a representative democracy has mutated into a complex plutocracy committed to maintaining a status quo, which far from promoting the general welfare sustains the economic standing of an increasingly smaller minority. American citizens do not see the government as an extension of civil society and their private life, but rather as an intrusive institution operating beyond their daily reality. Political activity is utterly alienated from the ordinary American. The state is not the embodiment of the public will, but rather a tool for further entrenching and protecting the interests of a few.
The economic system is broken. Increasingly common crises have revealed the general inefficiency of an economic system often acclaimed for its innate efficiency. Full-scale market consolidation has resulted in increased prices, decreased diversity and lower quality in many productive sectors. Human production continues to challenge the ecological limitations of the human environment. Homelessness, labor exploitation, poverty, unemployment and growing wealthy disparity daily remind us of the devastating consequences of crony capitalism. The continued development of the capitalist mode of production has become a fetter unto itself.
Civil society is broken. American citizens lack any clear national cohesion. Prevailing ideology has solidified an unfaltering commitment to individualism to the point that Americans have completely forgotten that they are in fact part of a society. It is generally agreed that the public and private man are “zero-sum categories that can exist and operate only at each other’s expense.” The right to liberty is perceived as merely a negative right (freedom from), rather than a positive right (freedom to) on the assumption that liberty is derived from the separation of human beings, not their connection. Any sense of civic duty, responsibility and participation has long since been eradicated from mass consciousness. Modern American civil society more closely resembles Hobbes’s state of nature than any civilized society idealized by classical liberal philosophers.
We, the American people, deserve better, but we must work for it. It is ultimately our choice which direction the nation takes moving forward. Despite the imminent threats this general crisis poses, there is a glimmer of hope. A moment of crisis offers an extraordinary opportunity for a new beginning, for a new America, an America, which actually delivers on the promises of an idealized America. The status quo and the hegemonic narrative that maintains it are weak. The lived experiences of millions of Americans are simultaneously challenging long held political, economic and social assumptions. Capitalism has waged the ‘war of position’ against itself and set the stage for the reinvigoration of a people’s movement committed to rejecting capitalism and market-based individualism, and promoting unprecedented degrees of democratization, egalitarianism and human development.
And yet with this opportunity comes great risk. Fear can induce great good, but it can also provide the catalyst for great evil. Similar phenomena of fear to that currently circulating the U.S. have been instrumental in the rise of demagogues and the destruction to human life that they invoke. Certain political organizations have already played on Americans’ fear to induce popularity for conservative backlash policies and the revival of a rather scary nativist movement. If ordinary Americans are co-opted or simply caught sleeping in the face of this crisis, the U.S. of tomorrow could all too easily come to resemble the authoritarian regimes of Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy of yesteryear.
That is why in the face of these broken systems and monumental crisis, I call upon Americans of every kind to resist the urge to direct this fear unto others and instead to capitalize on the opportunity it offers by harnessing our fear for good. I call upon Americans to shed the shackles of neoliberalism, individualism and political apathy and begin to envision a more free, democratic and egalitarian society than any we have previously seen. I call upon Americans to acknowledge their shared solidarity and work to construct both a civil society and a government established in the name of universal preservation, rather than particularistic preservation, which has for too long characterized American society. I call upon Americans to recognize that despite the unprecedented ‘progress’ associated with the U.S. and American capitalism, potentially better alternatives are indeed imaginable. We do not have to trade general progress and growth for ecological degradation, poverty, inadequate healthcare, structural unemployment and every other negative derivative of capitalism. Progress and the alleviation of modern society’s most pressing social problems are not mutually exclusive. We should not lose ourselves in a false vision of utopia, but we should also not sit idly by assuming that what we have is in fact the best possible.
This ‘call to arms’ is based on several distinct propositions. The first is that the U.S. is experiencing a general crisis of epic proportion and the way in which it is presented and interpreted by the public at large will greatly determine both the short term and long term trajectories of the U.S. The second is that capitalism is at the very heart of this crisis. It has run its course and now “constitutes a massive obstacle to the resolution of the very evils its own development has produced.” The third is that there is indeed an alternative to capitalism, which is capable of resolving the evils capitalism has produced and propagated. And the fourth is that in order for such an alternative to come into fruition the American people must wage for themselves both a Gramscian “war of position,” whereby the axioms of capitalism are put on trial, and “war of maneuver,” whereby a unified and mobilized people’s movement redefines an American democracy truly in the name of the people.