Richard J. Eskow makes the case that the solutions we are likely to be offered by our politicians in our upcoming elections will fall far short of addressing the systemic and structural wealth inequality that exists in our society today.
Like many of us here, he apparently read the the NYT article which described Hillary Clinton strategizing on what it denoted as "the central issue of her campaign : how to address the anger about income inequality without overly vilifying the wealthy."
That article was widely reprinted and was the subject of at least three diaries here at Kos.
Most commenters here and elsewhere have zeroed in on the same salient points in the Times story - that Hillary's nascent economic policy is already being fashioned by many of the same architects that led us to the economic gulch we currently inhabit, that Republican framing has already wormed its way into the dialog, i.e. "politics of envy", and that we can already smell the mothballs of hoary old "compassionate conservatism" in the current phrase du jour of Hillary's team "inclusive capitalism".
Please read the Eskow article and then join below for discussion
Eskow opens by telling us what we already know - this isn't just any old recession and the hackworn political strategies of dancing around the topic of economic reform and then making some small and illusory toggles around the edges that can be sold as politically palatable, aren't going to suffice this time around. He cites a paper by the New Institute for Economic Thinking which is discussed here, which includes a link to the actual study.
The authors conclude
"Policy initiatives with 'feasible' limits will not strongly affect distribution in the U.S. economy ... Only major social changes -- expropriating the expropriators in the ancient phrase -- could begin to accomplish this task."
Please take a moment to consider the full implications of that sentence. In all likelihood the solutions that will be offered by our politicians will not address the underlying issue of wealth inequality in any meaningful way. To actually address the conditions that led and are leading to the ongoing destruction of the working and middle classes would not be "feasible". We will continue further down our path of poverty and despair for a large percentage of our population, 46.9 million of whom spend more than they receive and 50- 60% of whom have a "negative savings rate" according to the study.
Now, back to Eskow, who presciently predicts what I agree could be the outcome of a centrist Democrat's failed economic program after election - if Democrats offer solutions that they and we all know in advance are not really solutions, the outcome could very well be that a majority of Americans come to agree with the basic Republican premise that "government doesn't work." And why wouldn't they? Because it won't work.
Eskow says that Hillary's quandary as defined by the New York Times is a straw dog in the first place - no one is looking for anyone to "vilify" the wealthy:
In fact, the entire "envy" and "vilification" framing is counter-productive. It's a rhetorical ploy which, whether intentionally or not, characterizes a genuine national crisis -- and the hardship of millions -- as a transitory and less than admirable emotional state. We are dealing with a problem which threatens to tear our social fabric apart, and it must be discussed that way.
To address it, we will need to change the terms of the national debate -- to begin with, in commentary and analysis. At a minimum, we must stop describing politically "feasible" half-measures as the "progressive" side of the debate. It is time for a genuinely progressive social and political dialogue to take center stage.
That means building an independent movement which is unafraid to call for the deeper shifts needed to reduce inequality -- and to keep our society whole.
Let's be blunt here folks, if the NYT article was accurate, and Hillary Clinton is already wasting time and energy in figuring out how to not vilify and alienate her donors while crafting economic policy, it doesn't bode well for the focus and direction of her campaign or for the policy proposals to follow. Further evidence of this is noted by Elias Isquith in
Salon:
Nearly as predictably, the Times report also quotes the left-wing economist Dean Baker saying that “Clinton people didn’t want to go near it” when he recommended the future candidate endorse imposing a fee on some financial assets. But while Clinton’s refusal to endorse a financial transaction tax has been longstanding, it’s recently taken on a different, greater relevance. If a Democrat opposed a tax on some Wall Street transactions back in the days before the Great Recession, that was hardly out of the ordinary. Lately, though, the Democratic Party has been drifting leftward: House Democrats’ January proposal to use a Wall Street fee to cut middle-class taxes, for example, has now pushed the idea squarely into the mainstream.
In other words, the Clinton economic team appears to be pre-emptively rejecting a viable means of raising taxes on the wealthy through what will be to them almost a nuisance tax of a small transaction fee on stock transfers which is
already being promoted by House Democrats! Isquith's makes the point that this stance follows in a Clinton tradition of an economic outlook that is "on the rightmost fringe of their party" :
Still, there were many who hoped that Clinton’s instincts as a politician would overcome her reflexive neoliberalism, and that she’d recognize why running as Wall Street’s favorite Democrat was a political dead-end. All the more so now that Republicans want to talk about the “opportunity gap.”
We will all be poorer than we already are if challenger voices are not raised in the upcoming election that are willing to call for the kind of politically imprudent major structural changes in our tax codes and fiscal policies that are necessary if we truly want to do things that will affect the lives of the majority of us in positive ways.
Where are these voices? Eskow cites Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as examples of politicians who are willing to "look beyond the world of wealthy individuals and corporate donors." We need them and we need more like them.
And we all need to tell Hillary Clinton collectively that at this time of economic uncertainty and societal instability, pandering rhetoric and incremental centrism will not be enough. Even if those tactics win the election, they will lose eventually in the battle to restore Americans to a semblance of fiscal security.