Dear Citizens and Elected Officials:
I hope everyone is holding up under these very trying circumstances, the pandemic and judging from this morning’s market collapses (Monday, March 16, 2020) a downward slide towards recession or worse for the economy.
Therefore, my reaction to last night’s debate may seem to be on a minor note, comparatively, but not really. I’ve been writing and speaking about how the Center-Right of American politics has paved the way for the rise of its successor — China — in a way in which no super-power in history has done. At least none I can think of. With lots of help from Western Europe too, eager to trade democratic principles for access to the world’s biggest growing market, all under the illusion that democracy must follow trade and capitalism in lockstep fashion.
Biden’s hypocrisy in attacking Sanders for noting the facts of China raising 100 million or so rural peasants out of poverty in record time — and I might add — being the only great country to industrialize without a major depression so far — is remarkable. But Sanders couldn’t cite this or score effectively on it. He has no instinct for the intellectual jugular, and going after the glaring distortions behind Biden’s stance (the whole history of the Democratic Party except the labor left and a few congressional opponents, is told in three words since Bill Clinton’s DNC: globalization, Neoliberalism, (accomodating) China...and let me note the consequences: the demise of the working class here and in the West at large…and the turmoil in Western politics…(for one take on Joe’s background on China, try this: www.nationalreview.com/...
Bill Greider who died Christmas Day, 2019, saw this clearly in his 1997 book: One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism. And I quoted Bill in my own essay on the rise of Trump: “Major Miscalculations: Globalization, Economic Pain, Social Dislocation and the Rise of Trump, here: www.paecon.net/...
This is how I put it in my comment in the NY Times this morning, just an hour ago, responding to all their commentators rating the two contestants here — www.nytimes.com/… the title being “Winners and Losers in Last Night’s Democratic Debate.
Bernie was true to form, that is to say, deeper than Biden, but unable to pivot even when Biden committed a remarkable hypocrisy. Two commentators here noted it, in muted tones. Biden's attack on Sanders for saying something good about China's poverty alleviation, hundreds of millions of peasants moved from rural subsistence to working class status in cities is a fact touted by conservative capitalists, professional economists and anyone who has eyes. Biden's own votes for trade deals, and Bill Clinton's efforts along with the corporate powers inside the democratic party pushed the WTO and entry for China at every point. No great superpower in history has ever laid out the red carpet for its demise the way we have for China, which has always been a dictatorship, Joe Biden, of the Communist Party of China, allowing capitalist initiative but no political dissent or challenge, parties or independent trade unions. The hope of Western Neoliberals was that going the capitalist route (with lots of qualifiers, because it is not Western style capitalism, it is managed and planned still to a good degree) would usher in more freedom and the beginnings of democracy. It has for private entrepreneurs, not citizens. So the whole center of American capitalism sings the praises of capitalism's achievement in cutting poverty in China, but Biden attacks Sanders for citing the same now. An intellectual low point for American politics. And Sanders couldn't score effectively off of it.
“By the way,” in no other criticism I’ve raised than this — the US paving the way for the rise of China — have I been so ferociously attacked by Democratic Centrists who to this day cannot see what a tragedy it has been for Western politics — yet no denying the benefits to the poor among the Chinese. If a working class anywhere erects a monument to Bill Clinton, it ought to be in China.
Best to you all — stay healthy.