What Would Lenin Do?
This past weekend, Wall Street Journal reporter Michael M. Phillips published dispatches from the world of godless socialism. No, he didn't visit Cuba or attend one of Hugo Chavez's Yankee-baiting rallies. Staying closer to home, Phillips interviewed some Americans still keeping the Great Red Hope alive -- that is, altruistic kids like Seth Dellinger who've got degrees in music from Wesleyan and who diligently hand out flyers calling for the overthrow of capitalism. To Dellinger's credit, he actually took a job in meatpacking to earn proletarian cred; however, the young man and his Socialist Worker's Party bear about as much resemblance to Lenin and Trotsky as does an ABBA cover band to Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and Anni-Frid -- the SWP is a nostalgia-driven, occasionally charming knockoff that evokes the original without ever quite being it.
The problem certainly isn't a lack of will on Dellinger's part, it's that there shall never be a Revolution, as he imagines it, because there's no recognizable working class -- not to mention a "self-conscious" one -- and not very many means of production worth seizing. In the land where industrial production actually is taking place, sometimes under wretched conditions, the personal savings rate of your average Chinese is is between 30 and 40 percent, proving that Marx's theory of the "immiseration of the working class" doesn't much hold in the Middle Kingdom. Things are getting better.
I digress. The whole point of Phillips's article is to ask a "real socialist" whether he thinks the recent Wall Street bailout, and accompanying nationalizations, amount to "socialism," as some have claimed. "If conservative Republicans are right and the $700 billion financial-sector rescue plan signals America's slide into socialism, you'd think Seth Dellinger would be celebrating." Well, he's not; ergo, it's not socialism. Case closed.
But then inquiring of a sentimental Trotskyite whether the bailouts are socialist is a lot like soliciting Marion Barry whether your once-a-month crack habit is any big deal. "Probably not," says the good mayor. Well, OK then. And similarly, all the Journal readers can rest assured that the bailouts are pure Americana and Treasury Secretary "Hank" Paulson is just trying to protect our free enterprise system.
Nonsense! The expansion of state power over the economy enacted by the former Goldman Sachs CEO is enough to make Stalin blush. Taking over factories or seizing the printing presses is sooo 20th century. Paulson and Bernancke have socialized the friggin' financial sector -- allowing Washington to better engineer who gets loans as well as fix prices in an industry measured in the trillions. Moreover, in finally getting Congress to relent and back the bailout, Paulson and Bernancke have succeeded in aggrandizing their unelected positions to the level of the president -- or, more accurately, the General Secretary of the Central Committee.
And yet in the face of all this, the nostalgic Bolsheviks think this is all about laissez-faire. Equally deluded are those on the far Left of the mainstream, like Naomi Klein, who are trying to convince themselves that the bailout is really Grover Norquist's double-secret plan to cut social security and dismantle the welfare state -- even though everything about Washington's plan enhances the power of the state and its socialist function.
If the far Left would wake up to the reality of the situation, they'd stop worrying and learn to love the bailout, they'd march hand-in-hand with comrades Hank and Ben, shouting to the world -- "Forward!"
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I don't think the pseudo-socialists you refer to are so much concerned with the socializing of the financial industry; I think they're worried that the government is merely giving Wall Street a pass. Like the parent who catches his child skipping school and torturing the pets, and responds by giving the kid a new bike -- ostensibly so the kid can ride it to school and have another hobby besides burning his cat's fur, but the real message is clear: Do whatever you want, junior; you'll be rewarded for it.
Likewise with the bailout: if we send the message to Wall Street that its egregious salaries and irresponsible lending are now the American people's problem -- i.e., have the tax payers take up the slack for your stupidity -- then how are we really solving any kind of problem? The system is still corrupt -- in fact, it may have just gotten more-so, since it got a free pass on this one.
If I'm missing the point of your post, please correct me. It just seems that you're criticizing the "socialists" for not getting the point of the bailout, when in fact they might be "getting it" in a way you don't mention.
I agree with you, incidentally, about the nostalgic Bolsheviks. However much they know their Marx & Engels, it's hard to take such an antiquated set of idealogues seriously. Much like modern day hippies staging Sixties-style protests of the war, it's simply aesthetic.
Hi David,
1) CEOs making a lot money has nothing to do with the global financial crisis; this whole issue is a distraction.
2)It's not so simple as government "giving Wall Street a pass." The state is expanding its control of the financial industry in the process. Moreover, it's engaging in a massive wealth redistribution program, using tax dollars from the middle class to bail out the well connected friends of "Hank" Paulson.
Secondly, in buying up all the toxic debt, Paulson and Bernanke are, in effect, engaging in fixing prices.
If this isn't socialism then what is?
(Also, memo to first time home buyers out there--wouldn't it be nice if the government allowed housing prices to fall dramatically? It'd be a great opportunity to buy!)
3) I, too, believe the system is corrupt, not due to "greed" but to the fact that the Fed has been flooding the market with easy credit for decades, and horrible organizations like Fannie and Freddie have taken on social engineering projects like trying to get every American into a home -- whether they can afford it or not.
Our chickens have come home to roost -- however, both parties want to "solve" the problem with more regulation and increased roles for the now fully nationalized Fannie and Freddie. It's a terrible vicious cycle.