By Francis Lee for the Saker Blog
Historically speaking “left” ‘’right,” and ‘centre” has been the political configuration dating from the French Revolution. In the 1789 French National Assembly, the nobility and high clergy sat to the right of the chair, while the third estate and lower-status clergy sat on the left. The benches in the middle became associated with political moderation.
Over the next century-plus, most European polities allowed for a “centrist” presence. Even the design of the European parliaments where the seating arrangements were horseshoe shaped and still are, except that is for the British parliament where the contending parties sit directly facing each other; initially Tories and Whigs but from the 20th century onwards Labour and Conservative. There were the cross-benches where the minor and generally ineffective parties sat. But Centrism will likely be distressed to learn that the first recorded appearance of the word “centrist,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was an 1872 insult from London’s Daily News correspondent in France, who assailed “that weak-kneed congregation who sit in the middle of the House, and call themselves centrists.’’
In the UK the centre was traditionally moderate, providing a seating space for a small Liberal party, until that is, the late Celtic arrivals of Irish, Welsh and Scottish militant nationalists – Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party who began to make their presence felt.
But it was the European party structures and their Parliamentary expression that led invariably to coalition governments; this was the case even in Nazi Germany where Hitler had to form an alliance with the Zentrum Liberal party to get an absolute majority in the Reichstag. This was quite different from the Anglo-American two party systems where the Government could de facto be elected on a one-party vote.
Nonetheless, centrism had its more forthright defenders. In the US at the dawn of the Cold War, liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger celebrated political moderation as a vigorous “Third Force” in his 1949 book The Vital Centre. Rather than left or right, he wrote, the real conflict was “freedom vs. totalitarianism.” The United States’ goal presidential election — which saw the resounding defeat of George McGovern in 1972 — occasioned a rightward shift in centre-left parties. Smarting from defeat and the Nixon triumph Democratic elites moved to retake control for a new direction for the party. And it was this that set the tone, not merely for the United States but also in Europe. In 1992 the man of the moment William Jefferson Clinton had arrived. But there was much work to be done. The sabotage of the tools that had underpinned the prosperity of the Golden Age of Capitalism (1945-75) also created unprecedented challenges for the political parties of the ‘soft’ left. Infused with what were thought to be new ideas they now began to look for new paths forward less hostile to finance and big business.
‘’We have moved past the sterile debates between those who say that government is the enemy, and those who say that government is the answer, said Clinton who, along with his wife Hilary had studied at Yale school during the 1970s, and Bill had an unfinished stint at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar in the late 60s (1) ‘My fellow Americans we have found a ‘Third Way’
THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE THIRD WAY
The ‘Third Way’ was a rather slippery and nebulous concept. In purely policy terms, however, the Clinton reforms were a mixed bag and differed from the postulates laid down by the former Reagan administration. In his 1992 presidential campaign Clinton promised that, if elected, he would bring about the “end of welfare as we know it.” This catchy election pledge aimed to address middle class concerns about so–called welfare dependency while also arguing that the government had an important role to play in fighting poverty and unemployment. Clinton’s Third Way position, at best, offered a way out of the liberal/conservative impasse on how to effectively reform America’s welfare system. At worst, Clinton’s position undermined the concept of welfare entitlements that the Democratic Party had established in America at an earlier period. In 1996 during the lead up to that year’s presidential election, President Clinton signed into law the most significant federal welfare Act since the 1960s. However, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) that Clinton signed had largely been drafted by congressional Republicans. Then came NAFTA, the bitterly contested policy which still rankles.
But possibly the most politically significant piece of legislation authorised by the Clinton administration was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. This Act had prevented ordinary commercial banks owning excess of certain types of dubious and dangerous financial companies, which had been considered so useful that it had survived until it was repealed in 1999 under Clinton and his Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, the former Goldman Sachs banker.
Of course this was manna from Heaven for the banking and financial fraternity, and it indicated the President’s choice of policies which had little in common with his professed ‘Third Way’ beliefs. In conclusion the failure of Clinton’s Third Way welfare agenda opened the way for more conservative reforms. This experience is illustrative of the pitfalls of Third Way politics with its mix of post–entitlement welfare policies and hard–nosed electoral positioning.
That being said the US economy began to move into high-gear during the 1990s and even managed a budgetary surplus. Alas, however, as with all upturns comes the downturns and the long-run, dot.com blow-out of 1999/2000, the US boom of the roaring 90s turned into a secular decline, and this was followed by even deeper economic crises in 2008 and now in 2020.
It could be argued in terms of cyclical political movements that there exists a rough correspondence between political and economic phases. In political terms this is usually a cyclical period between progress and reaction, movement, and order, conservative or radical, revolution and restoration. The great German social and political theorist, Max Weber, (1864-1920) would have argued that the Clinton restoration being based upon the Reagan/Thatcher ascendency was an example of charismatic authority that was superseded by legal-rational authority. In broad illustrative terms the MaoZedong period in China was followed by Chou En Lai, Trotsky was followed by Stalin, Napoleon by Louis XVIII, Cromwell was followed by the reinstallation of Charles II. As day follows night Revolution is followed by Restoration. But the restoration is never complete, and there can be no turning back to the status quo ante. But the strange thing was that during the second half of the 20th century a reactionary right-wing movement, best illustrated by Reagan and Thatcher was replaced by a milder ‘Third Way’ version of the same theory. The ‘Third-Way’ was beginning to take on rather familiar social and political forms, although its proponents would argue otherwise.
THE THIRD WAY CROSSES THE BIG POND
By 1997 the Clinton ascendancy – the Third-Way – had come to the attention of an ambitious young man who was trying to find an occupational niche for himself in the London milieu. Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, who preferred to be called ‘Tony’ (of course) and described himself as a ‘regular kind of guy’ (goes without saying) was the son of a barrister, Blair attended Fettes College in Edinburgh (a school often viewed as ‘‘Scotland’s Eton’’) and Saint John’s College of the University of Oxford, where he combined the study of law with interest in religious ideas and popular music. But he displayed little enthusiasm for politics until he met his future wife, Cherie Booth. He graduated from Oxford in 1975 and was called to the bar* the following year. While specializing in employment and commercial law, he became increasingly involved in Labour Party politics and in 1983 was elected to the House of Commons to the safe Labour parliamentary seat of Sedgefield, a tight-knit former mining district in north-eastern England. His entry into politics coincided with a long political ascendancy of the Conservative Party (from 1979) and Labour’s loss of four consecutive general elections (from 1979 through 1992). He stood as leader of the Labour party and won an overwhelming victory (1997) over a divided, dispirited and out-of-ideas, Conservative party.
Blair was one of those archetypal politicians – unfortunately one of many – who didn’t have a political notion in their heads; and as a complete opportunist he was, as was the case with Clinton, able to latch on to some of the fashionable threadbare and dubious political and economic ideas current at that time. One of those fashionable notions was the ‘Third Way’ in politics.
In fact the ‘Third Way’ was a pretty simple idea.
‘’It was an attempt by the parties of the left to stake out a new middle-ground in politics. Fuddy-duddy socialist ideas were considered distinctly de trop. Globalization as its proponents would argue, was considered inevitable, so countries should embrace it and adapt to it, hitching a ride on the growth of global financial markets, then shaving off globalizations rough edges with progressive social policies and dollops of good old-fashioned redistribution. As Blair and Germany’s Gerhard Schröder summarised it in a joint declaration in 1998, the Third Way stands out not only for social justice but also for economic dynamism and the unleashing of creativity and innovation.
But this third way was always an offshore model, a recipe for countries effectively to turn themselves into tax havens in order to prosper in rough, globalizing seas. The model was, in turn, driven by the competitiveness agenda, the notion or ideology, that states must be ‘open for business’ constantly dangling enticements to large multinationals and banks and to rootless global money – for fear that they will decamp to more hospitable or ‘competitive’ places like Dubai, Singapore or Geneva. (2)
THE IDEOLOGICAL ASSIMILATION OF THE OLD LEFT
But behind the rhetoric of a new golden age which awaited the electorates on both sides of the pond was the familiar sound of disappointment among the loyal supporters and believers who were somewhat sceptical about the new order – with good reason. The newly entrenched and consolidated Third-Way involved strict de-regulation of labour markets and only light-touch regulation – if at all – of financial markets. In the meantime financiers, were still relatively untouched by the pseudo-rhetoric of globalization. The whole dreary neo-classical credo was trotted out namely that that if left alone, financial markets would reward efficient firms and punish inefficient ones which would go out of business. Meanwhile financiers could help with mergers and transfers of ownership of the more efficient. This reasoning also bolstered demand for the privatisation of state enterprises, which was soon embraced with almost as much enthusiasm by social democratic parties as by their right-wing opponents – witness the French socialist government of Lionel Jospin and the renamed ‘New Labour’ government of Tony Blair.
The period of debt-financed growth got into gear in the early 80s during which it was sustained up until the start of the 21st century. That time bore witness not only to economic issues but also to political and ideological questions and concepts; a reactionary milieu established itself where decadence had become de rigueur. The presence of rampant individualism, obsession with self, contempt for failure was contained in Ayn Rand’s view of life. Doyenne of the new age Ms Rand’s rise in popularity coincided with the widest gap between rich and poor in the history of the US. Her books are today actually more popular than when she lived, and attempts are being made by very wealthy parties to sell her ideology as the philosophy of our era.
Ms Rand has been accused of Vulcanism, that is of exhibiting an attitude of pure logic unbalanced by empathy and humanity like the character Spock from Star Trek, who is from planet Vulcan. When people of high intelligence lack human empathy, they can be intellectually arrogant, even narcissistic.
One of the major criticisms of Ayn Rand is that all her heroes are self-centred sociopaths, as she is: they are concerned only with themselves, with their own purpose and ambition, and they are entirely unconcerned with others.
Rand also ignores context in her assessment of reality: the persistence of her logic leads to places where philosophy gets utterly divorced from common sense and reality. Philosophical materialists must contend with the facticity that we are woven into in its entirety, even with those aspects of our facticity that are what she would view as not heroic, like the hunger of the masses.
Okay it can be generally agreed that the idiosyncratic Ms Rand is a little bit over the top, but her generalisations roughly ring true with today’s ailing social and moral societal collapse.
But as Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) once noted:
‘If, in activities that almost completely fill all of our days, we follow no rule save that of our own self-interest, as we understand it, how then can we acquire a taste for altruism, for forgetfulness of self and sacrifice? Thus the lack of any economic discipline cannot fail to produce damaging social effects that spill over beyond the economic sphere, bringing with it a decline in morality.’’(3)
One wonders whether or not Ms Rand actually believes in her virulent anti-social messages, or, what I rather suspect, she is simply out to shock the more gullible by voicing what are in essence simply crackpot outpourings.
That being said she certainly has a following particularly among those well-heeled denizens who seem intoxicated with these rantings.
IT’S THE ECONOMY STUPID
Turning to economics the situation goes from bad to worse. This is hardly surprising since the attempt to abolish the trade cycle, a rather eccentric and fashionable notion since the early 1980s, was bound to result in an economic nemesis. It has been argued that:
‘’Whilst all capitalist systems are premised on the monopolisation on the gains of growth by the people who own the assets, under finance led growth these dynamics become more extreme. Rising private debt might conceal this fact during the upswing of the economic cycle, but when the downturn hits it becomes clear that finance-led growth is based upon trickle-up economics, in which the gains of the wealthy come directly at the expense of ordinary people. This is because financialization involves the extraction of economic rents from the production process – income derived from the ownership of existing assets that does not create any new value. (4)
Paper currency is not value, it is a claim on value, a promissory note. Value is produced in the production process, whereas economic rent – rent on land, titles of future ownership claims (stocks, shares, bonds) monopolistic pricing, patents – is produced in the extractive process. It is fictitious capital. The financial economy is essentially parasitic on the productive economy.
When corporations generate ‘growth’ it should be understood that the Central Bank enables this ‘growth’ when it showers the same corporations with QE monies who simply buy-back their own shares/stocks and become richer! In the same manner when large corporations buy other smaller businesses – through mergers and acquisitions M&A, they also become ‘richer’ but in fact no new wealth has been created, what has occurred is a shift of wealth from one sector of the economy to another, this is a zero-sum game where the central bank determines the winners and losers in this rigged fixture: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Another side of this process is the increasing market concentration with the growth of monopolies/oligopolies and the monopoly rents that go with it.
Having painted itself into a corner the economics institutions, both public and private, seem unable to extricate themselves from an ever-tightening process of slow economic and political strangulation.
In summation we may say without reservation that the ‘Third-Way’ was a rather transparent con-trick reminiscent of the second-rate magician in Thomas Mann’s allegorical novel Mario and the Magician. In this particular work the sorcerer, Cipolla, is analogous to the fascist dictators of the era with their fiery speeches and rhetoric designed to hoodwink his political audience into believing that what appears to be real is in fact not real. In our own time this simulacrum is the product of modern advertising techniques designed to mask the reality behind a stream of psychological manipulation and conditioning of the audience. How long this process and phenomenon will last is problematic. Western civilization seems standing at the crossroads without a plan B.
It’s rather like Gerald Celente always says: ‘‘When everything else fails, they take you to war.’’
NOTES
(1) As the 2016 presidential campaign closed in on the finish line, the Washington Post published an eleven-year-old tape of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s making controversial remarks about women. The inevitable partisan rancour that ensued largely targeted the behaviour Bill Clinton, husband of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, including the repetition of rumours that he had been expelled from Oxford University in 1969 for raping English classmate Eileen Wellstone.
The allegations weren’t new — Republican opposition research strategist Roger Stone had tweeted about them a year earlier:
The backdrop for these rumours was that just prior to his graduation from Georgetown University, Bill Clinton won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study at University College, Oxford, for two years and headed off to England for the 1968-69 academic term — but he returned to the United States (under a pall?) before finishing out the full two-year course of study.
There was additionally the Lewinsky affair. Yes, Mr Clinton certainly had a penchant for the ladies.
(2) Nicholas Shaxson – The Finance Curse – Chapter 5 fn 10 – p.97) In the words of Peter Mandelson, Blair’s Svengali and his co-author Roger Liddle in their book – The Blair Revolution – the main aim of the Third Way project was to ‘… overcome Britain’s continued slide into international competitiveness … based upon partnership or private and public sectors and create a more equal and cohesive society.
(3) Emile Durkheim – The Division of Labour in Society – p.xxxiv.
(4) Grace Blakeley – Stolen – p.14.
* ‘Called to the Bar’ This has nothing to do with going for a drink in a licensed establishment! It is a term used by the legal profession signifiying the entrance of the candidate into the legal profession and practising of law thereof.
Clinton’s “Third Way” was a successful plot to hijack the populist Party of Roosevelt (masses) and bring it into lockstep with the neoliberal Party of Reagan (elite). Henceforth the U.S. political establishment only represented the capitalists, it became a One Party state (with two wings). This is closely related to the ideological battle that was the Cold War–the nominally worker-centered politics of the Soviets polarized the West to identify with the capitalists.
Then Trump comes along, “a sheep in wolf’s clothing”–an elite capitalist yet not a Reaganite–and we now have a soulless Party of Reagan (Dems) facing, ostensibly, the Party of Trump. But I question whether Trump even has a Party behind him; all clues simply put him as an individual who’s self-obsession trumps any obsession with ideology. To be clear, any departure from neoliberal vampirism is welcomed by the masses, if only on a reactionary basis.
There is now an opportunity for a “second Third Way”, a return to Rooseveltian populism (dare I say socialism) in response to the pandemic and a failing economy. As David Brooks claims in a Oct 22 NYT opinion, “Big Government is back”–at least, this is what The People overwhelmingly want. But will either the GOP or Dems turn their back on their donors (the real constituency) to embrace the opportunity for a people-centered agenda? Unlikely. All trends point to the continuing erosiom of democracy and an American Peoples’ Revolution sometime in the next decade.
But I question whether Trump even has a Party behind him; all clues simply put him as an individual who’s self-obsession trumps any obsession with ideology. To be clear, any departure from neoliberal vampirism is welcomed by the masses, if only on a reactionary basis.
That sums up Trump’s policies and appeal perfectly. Totally lesser of two evils.
Trump has a party behind him alright the large numbers of grass roots and middle roots of the GOP but not all the the big old players. And he is a Reaganite.
Both parties are in internal battle mode whether they realize it or not.
If the DNC Biden-Harris ticket fails then the Dems will implode.
If Trump fails then the GOP is likely see a lot of problems and they wont be able to recycle another establishment type.
The likely result is mass defections of both parties to form 2 new ones where the big $ interest are not welcome. Parties cannot win elections without those grass roots support.
Same in UK & EU.
2020 is the crossroad.
Parliamentary democracy was always a creature of the mercantile classes….it started life as a lobbying platform in which to beseech the King/Queen, it was never meant as a tool for the masses, if it was the pyramid shape of power wouldn’t exist.
As for Blair you must look at the Australian Hawke/Keating government as his model.
This government was the longest serving labor government at the time but it was never working class in intent and implemented many Regan/Thatcher ideas.
Blair visited Australia while in opposition and took many ideas back home.
The dilution of power from the pyramid model is the only way forward for a fairer society.
Cookie; You are totally right regarding the dilution of power from the pyramid model. The pyramid model is a product of the Patriarchal civilizational order. Its final result is institutionalized egoism. It is now terminating its 5000 year run. So the movement into a more balanced and democratic system is a function of post-patriarchal civilization building. This means the Universal Feminine Principle emerges in order to facilitate the supersession of one-sided, exclusively patriarchal, power. Socialism is an expression of that process. So we have patriarchy and its ego driven domination hierarchy being replaced by socialist democracy. That is the essence of the political struggle.
BS
More balanced and democratic….
Your assumption that abandoning the patriarchy model will bring happiness is wrong.
What you call patriarchy is derived from biology. Your assumption that denying biological evolution will bring happiness has no base.
Men and women are equal in rights but absolutely different in biology. That will necessarily mean different decision making, including not being very active in specific profession.
There is no law preventing woman to do anything they want. It’s all BS now!
Patriarchy? Post patriarchal society? Universal feminine principle? LOL, you are making a joke, right? You should perhaps study more as to what patriarchy is, has been and can be. What this world has largely experienced is not patriarchy. What examples of the feminine principle do you have in mind? Hillary Clinton? Madeleine Albright? Women can be as bloodthirsty and ruthless and at times more so than men. I’m shaking my head on this one but clearly it is a big issue in your head because you made two back to back comments where you mentioned patriarchy.
Rather than jumping to the conclusion that I don’t know what I am talking about it is best to just just admit that you don’t know what I am talking about. I have been studying patriarchy for many years and have learned that it has its basis in religious culture. There is an abundance of supporting evidence for this point of view, and it is widely respected. I suggest you listen more respectfully to what women are saying about patriarchy. Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright have totally given themselves over to the logic of patriarchal power models. They are total sell outs, and are as against the universal feminine principle of heart centered erotic connectedness and loving caring as any male psychopath.
An enormous amount of the confusion and loss of integrity in our Western religious culture is a consequence of it not knowing how to recognize or honor the return of feminine spiritual perspectives. And that confusion enormously impacts the political issues we confront.
For example Socialism started in France in the 1840’s as a Romantic rebellion against the suffocating constraints of patriarchal bias in religious values and morality. Only later under the influence of Marx did it turn to focus exclusively on the issue of capitalism Both Socialism and feminism, along with their intimate mutual relation, represent an evolutionary movement to heal and rebalance the exclusive one-sidedness of patriarchy.
This is verified by George Lichtheim in his “The Origins of Socialism.”
The very entities that people on this site spend so much time complaining about being oppressed by all have in common their origins in the patriarchal model of social power. For example the cult of
Talmudic Judaism (“thank God I was not born a woman”), the Roman Catholic Church and its hatred of female popes etc, and then the capitalist oligarchs you all love so much. All of these are patriarchal power pyramids. Who runs them? Chicks and female philosophers -right? The power wielders in these schlerotic institutions live on an accumulated heritage of hatred for the sacred dimensions of woman’s power. Who was so hungry to burn the witches? And why?
If one is going to say that “there is no law preventing woman from doing anything that they want” I just have to wonder how serious you are. I can think of a host of contradictions to that statement. I would not know where to begin. Let me quote an expert for you; Dr. Carl Jung – “All the ways of the Goddess have been reduced to vices.” Have you ever heard of a red light district? That is what he is talking about. Just one highly charged and controversial example that will set people off is that of sex work. The patriarchal religious morality condemns it as an absolute evil. Hence women are jailed for doing what in non patriarchal cultures is considered sane and morally enriching. Did you know that in various Asian cultures (so I am told) it is quite acceptable for a Buddhist nun to be also a prostitute? Isis, a female God of great repute, is the patron Diety of prostitutes. In honor of her women wear lipstick to advertise their availability and aptitude for fellatio. This is historically verifiable. But perhaps there is a Christian or two here who may object to my observation as “immoral.” If so it just proves my point.
As Gore Vidal pointed out “sex is political.” We can get a sense of the ongoing war between patriarchy and the feminine by sorting through the psychology of the controversy around the morality of human sexuality.
I suggest that we can all learn a great deal about our current spiritual predicament by taking the trouble to understand what Dr. Carl Jung meant when he described the cold war as “an argument within the family.” By that he meant a conflict between the masculine and feminine dimensions of the Diety. (read “deity” as the human essence) His point is that the masculine (i.e. patriarchal establishment) is in a Holy War against the Feminine values of Socialism. Russia is a “Mother” right? And the commies are Red (feminine). A valid psychological argument about how the West just cannot stop the war against socialism is the patriarchy’s horror in the face of resurgent feminine spirituality. A woman once said to me that “women practice socialism in a great variety of ways.” Have you ever stopped to check out just how pervasive the influence of the feminine principle is in socialism? Try watching the movie “Goodbye Lenin” if you are interested.
Do you know anything about the ancient tradition of the sacred prostitute? Ishtar? Of course not. It is a sacred religious function lost over time and buried under millennia of patriarchal denial. Over the millennia patriarchy has degraded it and reduced it to nothing more than what it can term a moral vice. When women say to men “get your tired misogynist laws of my body” they are saying that they want their fundamental feminine nature freed from the shackles of one sided patriarchal moral judgement. The liberation of women includes the right to manage their bodies outside of some uptight male telling them what the “should” do.
The real problem here my friends and comrades is that we have been so marinated in one-sided patriarchal bias for so long (all of the last 5,000 years of “His story”) that we can’t even see it. So restoring a balance between authentic masculine values and feminine values is a very difficult subject. Most people are simply unqualified to address the issue. It takes deep learning to see into and through this issue.
My sources derive from many years of studying Jungian psychology and religion, along with a rich variety of supportive material. If you really want to know what I mean by “Patriarchy” I suggest you read “The Pentagon of Power” by Lewis Mumford. He makes a very clear description of how our whole cultural mind set is determined by the rise of the exclusively patriarchal world view, with its focus on the eye and the mental perspective. All of known history is “patriarchal” history, hence it is as invisible to us as water is to a fish. Their is plenty of opportunity for you to study these things. Many intelligent people have and do understand what I am talking about.
The need I am advancing is to introduce these liberating understandings that are now widely recognized in psychological circles into political conversation where it is almost completely unknown. This is by no means easy as it confronts so many unexamined assumptions. I am prepared for this and sincerely respect and thank you both for taking me seriously enough to respond to my admittedly confronting remarks.
@Snow Leopard: “All of known history is “patriarchal” history, hence it is as invisible to us as water is to a fish. ”
English poet Robert Graves, grandson of German historian von Ranke, made the same point in a long book, probing the patriarchal replacement of a matriarchal religion that goes back to the Stone Age; a difficult but rewarding book: “The White Goddess”. Graves as a man was fiercely independent without being political.
“The greatest benefit of a Classical Education [ie, Greek, Latin and their patriarchal Olympian Religion] is a stylish ability to lie in public.” — The White Goddess
Dr NG Maroudas; It is, once again, a satisfying pleasure to feel that we are working here together. It seems we understand each other well. Your comments about Robert Graves and “The White Goddess” are exactly on point. His work was the beginning of a great movement that has led to so much more. As far as I can see he actually began the movement that a great many others, including myself, have drawn wisdom and strength from. I take great comfort in your erudition, and look forward to continuing to learn from you. Thank you again for your delightful style.
This “Third Way Scam” was never anything more than a bourgeois attempt to avoid the decisive issue of class struggle between patriarchy and peoples democracy. In it the bourgeoisie tried to co-opt all of those who desired to avoid the hard and difficult work of class struggle and carry them into a dreamland wherein the class issue was irrelevant. A cleverly packaged bubble of bourgeois illusion. Just another feature of the bourgeoisie using their minds in the service of their own class interest. Their ideological constructs are mentally sophisticated, but it is still just class war. They know it and want us to deny it. It is reminiscent of the comparison between communists and socialists during the 1914 affair, wherein the socialists were soft to the point of endorsing the patriarchal monsters who wanted the war in order to kill off the communism of the masses.
The Result was Leninism and Red Russia
In your paragraph: “When corporations generate ‘growth’ . . . ”
Isn’t what you’re describing called Mercantilism?
Mercantilism relates to nationalist protectionism (favored trade status, which Trump favors), while Fed fueled “growth” is just old-fashioned cronyism, aka corruption. The so-called “growth” in this case being totally imaginary and amounting to nothing more than a wealth transfer. Nice racket for the rich, for as long as it lasts anyway. But since it’s zero-sum Ponzi at heart, it (theoretically) can’t go on forever. Evidently western economists and their rich patrons have convinced themselves otherwise. We’ll see.
The Third Way has succeeded on only in empowering globalists and producing wildly unequal societies, which has in turn led to the rise of new Third Position movements throughout Europe and some of the Anglosphere.
The Third way is not the scam.
that there are only two alternatives is the scam.
The Third Way is not the scam! Its much more fundamental than that.
Using the Gross Domestic Product, GDP (the total annual output of products and services) as a measure of the ‘health’ of a national economy is *the* scam – as it is consolidates the income inequality in society (ie it doesnt differentiate to which sector – owners of wealth OTOH or workers OTO – the gains are going).
As Chomsky has observed:
“Unlimited economic growth has the marvellous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists.”
Regards
Very good essay illustrating the deficiencies in identifying one’s politics with old parliamentary/assembly seating arrangements.
Behind this mask of often Fake, Expedient Identity the politicians and their puppet masters put on quite a show, obscuring the ideological and credit control (what is watered with credit grows, what is denied credit—belief in repayment—– withers) strings making……….. the entire puppet show function for the distraction and entertainment of the masses…… mind controlled by fake dualities…and adopting superficial, stupid identities.
Despite this mental muddle that the masses have always been mired in, humanity has progressed in science, technology (especially as applied to agriculture….freeing the bulk of the population from back breaking labor in the fields to barely sustain themselves) and other aspects of civilized society to be on the edge of the possibility of comfortable and fulfilled and much longer and culturally enriched lifespans…… for not hundreds of millions of people…..worldwide…a mere few centuries ago ………..
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/
………………….but for perhaps a few score of billions a century or two from now.
This process has occurred with the vast majority benefitting (mostly unconsciously) in the aggregate either very gradually, or very suddenly (China in recent decades, Korea since WW II, Germany 1850-1890…etc) with occasional disastrous wars or plagues briefly interrupting the overall “upward” trend.
All along the way, the few (oligarchy) who have had vastly disproportionate power over the lives of the many, have been prone to an exaggerated egoism…..(“born to rule”….of “nobler blood”) to the extent of believing in their innate superiority over the bulk of humanity….an egoism which often rots their souls…..largely because of the privilege of leisure to learn, study, accumulate more power and wealth and look down on the rest……..from the heights of Mount Olympus…like the arrogant, corrupt often murderously jealous and incestuous Greek Gods.
This identity has caused them always to abhor the first gradually ….then acceleratingly increasing numbers of the masses…..and they have sought the means to restrain or even reverse those numbers…..among which were a few nobility….but mostly commoners of greater conceptual and creative capacity….which kept inventing better ways of doing things (THE real source of wealth…..aiding the productive powers of labor) driving all of this forward and upward….while the great majority of persons just scrambled to first 1) survive 2) enjoy a few more of the fruits of whatever society they plopped out of the womb into 3) bequeath a few more advantages in opportunity to those new souls they brought into the world from their procreative instincts, than they had.
From top to bottom in that process…the bulk of myopic individuals have pursued what they could see…..their usually more immediate self interest…and ignored, for the most part, that which they could not see nor imagine themselves affecting…..Human or National or Civilizational Progress as a whole.
This myopia leads to many errors (or “sins”, if you will) of short term egoic expediency over long term “investment” of time, effort or resources in anything “better”…more enduring for humanity as a whole.
So what Francis describes is a situation in which the temptations for the Tony Blairs and the Bill Clintons (to amass from scores to hundreds of millions to billions of dollars worth of wealth, private jets, private islands, etc and to be recruited by the psychopathic oligarchic class to betray the masses that they emerged out of….including killing them by the scores of millions through war and disease..(BLAIR and his “post Westphalian World of the “Responsibility to Protect” ISIS supporting scam..) with even Grander Genocide on the Drawing Table of places like Davos……where the first concern is the “sustainability” of the privilege of deciding the fate of billions…….while absolutely….# 1 Priority….. clinging to and increasing their “godlike” (often Satanic, Luciferian) power over the fate of all the rest.
I think you may find that Donald Trump, despite your cynical fears to the contrary…..is not their instrument...but is actually a much underestimated and poorly comprehended Nationalist threat to their Globalist “ORDER through Chaos”…and goal of vast, breathtaking Genocide, for stunning levels of Population Reduction…..”globally”.
Which (Nationalist vs Globalist) is a far more useful political duality more reflective of the moral duality of Good vs Evil……than the old worn out Left vs Right …..and fence straddling, compromised compromisers in the Third, Middle Way…..that originated from seating schemes in the French Assembly in the late 1700s.
It is a relevant fact to note that Reagan and Thatcher ran opposite policies – Reagan was another engima in that he talked the balanced budget rhetroic but never delivered one and spent like a drunken sailor on Republican agendas, whereas as Thatcher drove the economy into the ground with monetarists policies running surpluses doing a lot of damage to the Midlands, North & Scotland, then to continue with their money grubbing agenda the UK moneychangers found Blair to confidence trick on port tac as this author notes, just as they had recruited Bill Clinton when they paid for is time at Oxford.
There are still lingering questions as to what really happened to Blair’s Labor Party predecessor, John Smith, who mysteriously died of a alleged heart attack in 1994 which enabled Blair to take over. Just like the Clinton body count. Since 2007 Blair has been a globalist minon for the same fascist forces.
You can also add to this “Third Way” list Bob Hawke and Paul Keating in Australia and Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien in Canada who promised one thing and delivered another.
Bill Clinton was liar and confidence trickster from the 60s war protestor movement who was corrupted by big money interests. He promised X but delivered Y to his supporters. The early 90s he told workers in factories he was against free trade and cheap imports but signed NAFTA and let in vast quantities of them.
That is why they deserted him in the 1994 election and faced a hostile House and Senate.
The Clintons have continued to masquerade as such with Hillary claiming to represent the true believers in the Democratic party but she too is a Soros puppet. Only Bernie Sanders represents the them now.
Glass-Seagall was turfed because of payoffs to the Clintons.
The current mess is a direct result of Bill Clinton. This is what you get when you let a hillbilly into the White House. The Republicans also are to blame to some extent having similar unreliable characters like Mitt Romney and John McCain.
I have no doubt the whole house of cards will come tumbling down in the next decade if Trump isnt re-elected. Even if he gets another term the period after that is a concern unless he leaves in place someone similarly reliable.
Democrat voters will see thru all this in the next 12 months and major reform will take place, just as grass roots Republicans will also do the same.
Santiago
“Democrat voters will see thru all this in the next 12 months and major reform will take place, just as grass roots Republicans will also do the same.”
I wish it was that simple. However as I see it the CIA is the uncrowned king of the American mind and has outlawed reform. Their media will not permit such thinking to concretize. That is what they see as their “sacred” function. Hence Americans are ruled by fear and don’t have a clue how to either face it or organize to deal with it. They are facing “expert” and well practiced evil and will have to dig much deeper to resolve it.
If Trump was a real populist and not a fake (or completely incompetent, at least as a President) he would have gone for a tax on financial transactions, expensing of previously depreciated items, and taxing short-term capital gains as ordinary income instead of rewarding those who replaced U.S. machinery and $20/hr employees with Chinese machinery and 20 cent/hr employees.
He listens to the likes of Scary Kudlow. Someone who probably has prescriptions for dextroamphetamine from 84 squirrels so he can shove a crushed tablet up his nostrils every 15 minutes 21 hours/day.