Just what is "neoliberalism"? We need to get that straight before we talk about it. The context for Lakoff's use of the term was the idea that 18th century enlightenment thinking was woefully inadequate for the politics of the 21st century. He has a whole book on the topic and his ideas were very useful for many of us during the presidential race. Here is the term again in an article by David Moberg, a senior editor of In These Times, who has been on the staff of the magazine since it began publishing. He has a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago and has worked for Newsweek. Recently he has received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nation Institute for research on the new global economy. So why is he framing his article A Spectre is Haunting America: Ghosts of neoliberalism trouble Obama’s response to the recession with language clearly designed to make us remember Marx and Engels? Look below the break to find out.
What Lakoff was concerned about was the failure of neoliberalism to recognize that the framing of issues and debates had become the "property" of the right and that neoliberals would seem to willingly allow the right to dominate debate while there almost absolute belief in the enlightenment frame forced them to use facts, figures, and reason that were superb even though they went nowhere. Clearly Barack Obama understood Lakoff's point because he was able to avoid the trap that neoliberals were throwing themselves into and to reframe the debate in terms of values and emotions that derailed the right's.
So there is a repudiation of the spectre that is haunting us again. The capitulation to the "government is only good if small and limited" line of thought is not the route to the hearts and minds of the American people. Or as Moberg puts it:
Since 1980, the idea that government is bad has dominated American politics — from Ronald Reagan’s maxim that government is the problem, not the solution, to Bill Clinton’s declaration that "the era of big government is over." But President Barack Obama’s inaugural address marked the beginning of a new — or at least renewed — paradigm that shifts the balance between government and markets, or public and private power.
"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified," Obama said in his inaugural speech. "Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."
Obama’s pragmatic formula rejects the prevailing ideology that the smaller government, the better (except for the military and the protection of property rights). It also taps into the notion that while Americans may not like big government in theory, they want government to solve many problems. And the problems now facing Americans demand a much broader role for government.
I was in awe when I heard that speech and it made a link in my mind between Lakoff's teachings and what the new president was thinking.
Underneath all this is the link between the writings by Lakoff that described modern research in cognitive science and Obama's ability to focus people's attention on the lessons we learned from that research without becoming pedantic. The more I hear, the more I believe that we have a new set of frames to work with that make sense to people and, finally, have a sound intellectual foundation rather than a jingoistic quality to them. But, as Moberg says:
The majority of working- or middle-class Americans will trust government more only if it consistently works for them. And if government works for them, then the economy will work better. That’s the message of economist Jeff Madrick’s new book, The Case for Big Government (Princeton University Press, 2009).
Despite the laissez-faire culture in the United States, government intervention — from protecting infant industries to forming public universities — has always played a central role in the country’s development. And big government has produced results, Madrick argues, such as faster growth and greater equality during the first quarter-century after World War II, particularly when compared to the stagnant standard of living for most Americans and the growing inequality and insecurity that resulted from neoliberal policies of recent decades.
Government, Madrick argues, has advantages over private corporations. It has an ability to coordinate large systems, to take a long-term perspective, to attend to the common good, to be held accountable, to provide greater stability and to benefit everyone (positive externalities, in economist’s terms). While the limits of government are endlessly trumpeted, few note the numerous areas where big government often works best.
That brings us to another word that has been so carefully framed by the right so that neoliberals fear it, namely nationalization. I have always reacted with vigor to the myth that there actually is a "free market" that government has no place in. In fact, the myth is again one that has had such obvious flaws that were rather carefully left out of the debate so right wing frames were able to perpetuate it. Nationalization of monopoly businesses seems like an alternative that must be on the table with others. There is irony in the fact that as the right wing myths were allowed to dominate, more and more businesses became free to dominate their "markets" and extract resources from them with no checks and balances. Suddenly every where we look we see them in trouble because they ate their very reason for being there. The article ends on this note:
Unlike the emerging plan to create a government "bad bank" to buy up toxic bank assets, nationalization allows the government to take control of, and benefit from, the increased values of both good and bad assets over time. There would be little or no problem setting a price for those toxic assets, and it would be easier for the nationalized banks to resolve the roughly $55 trillion in credit default swaps hanging over the financial system.
Nationalization would also mean that the shareholders and executives who profited from the banks’ wild speculation would pay a price for their reckless greed. A continued bailout with a bad bank is costly public protection for private shareholders, even if the government receives stock as part of the bailout deal. And with nationalization, the government would have enough control to make sure banks resumed lending and stopped feathering executives’ nests.
There’s a strong case that nationalization would work best, thereby meeting Obama’s criteria for pragmatic governance. But private interests and ideological blinders are blocking the administration from seriously considering it. Ironically, nationalization could do more to save — and perhaps even favorably transform — capitalism than more timid uses of government power and money.
The era of big government, it has turned out, isn’t over after all. But the much-needed era of big thinking remains in its precarious infancy.
So we are still deficient in our understanding of why we are here and what our options might be because of the failure to see the limits of the neoliberal affection for enlightenment myths that miss the way political minds actually work. I, for one, am thankful to George Lakoff for making this situation clear and for showing some very practical things we can do about it.