Crisis Will Test American - and African American - Social Compact
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
"The combined leadership of the now-indistinguishable business parties broke the will of the resistance."
With every panic-filled day, it becomes clearer that the American people are on their own - uniquely so in the industrialized world. As the financial shocks emanating from Wall Street circle the globe, extinguishing trillions in paper values with every circumnavigation, citizens of other developed, western nations can take comfort in their national social safety nets - for the time being - and in the less tangible but far more crucial social compact among citizens, that springs from the struggles that built those safety nets. European social democracy, despite its vast failings, nevertheless exists as an ideology and history that is an elemental property of western European societies. "Labor" and "workers" parties at least pretend to serve their nominal constituencies. In whatever way European working people and progressives decide to confront the global meltdown, they are fortunate to have rudimentary tools at hand.
Not so, here in the United States, where bourgeois values saturate the brains of those who benefit least from such modes of thought, like ghetto Hip Hop youth, and where union functionaries are actually proud not to celebrate May Day in solidarity with other workers around the world.
Crises are not just measured in capital and jobs lost, houses foreclosed and social services curtailed. When state and/or economic structures break down, the people's collective fate depends on their affinity with each other: the social compact. The United States is notable for the weakness of its social compact, a characteristic rooted in the supremely anti-social practices of genocide and slavery, and the more mundane "I'm going to get rich" motivations of its overwhelmingly economic (white) immigrants.
In this weak-compact society, in which negative, race-based behavior in opposition to the "Other" (for example, white flight) negates class solidarity at virtually every critical juncture, African Americans stood out and benefited greatly from their sense of solidarity and willingness to collaborate with others around progressive issues. Dr. Martin Luther King thought the Black social tradition, once mobilized, was such a powerful elixir, he and his fellow political preachers made their motto "To save the soul of America."
"The people's collective fate depends on their affinity with each other: the social compact."
But the potion wore off. Time, and capital's corruption of every nook and cranny of the culture, have further reduced the U.S. social compact and made brittle every public institution. It is difficult to envision how American society will weather the coming storms, when the Gods of Capital - who left no social space for any gods but themselves - have so utterly failed.
The Democrat party dissolved itself as a useful political institution on Friday, October 3, as congressional and "presidential" leadership forced the progressive minority to endorse Wall Street's bailout. There is nothing left to salvage - certainly not the Congressional Black Caucus, once billed as the "conscience of the Congress," now thoroughly neutered. The Black Caucus had emerged from the first bailout vote, the previous Monday, with some small dignity intact, having split 21 to 18 against acceding to the corporate extortionist, $700 billion demand. Even then, relatively consistent progressives such as Maxine Waters (CA), and Gwen Moore (WI) voted with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and presidential standard bearer Barack Obama, who were eager to show they were more loyal to the administration and Wall Street than the congressional Republicans. Obama offered Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson a place in his cabinet before even signing off on the bailout.
"There is nothing left to salvage - certainly not the Congressional Black Caucus."
Surprised that 40 percent of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans had balked at the bailout, and ignoring the fact that strong majorities of the public opposed giving a dime to save the fallen financial oligarchs, the combined leadership of the now-indistinguishable business parties broke the will of the resistance. No significant concessions were necessary. "It is the same bill plus hundreds of new pages for hundreds of millions of tax breaks," said Cleveland Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the former presidential candidate and one of the few genuine social democrats in the U.S. House. Kucinich continued:
"This bill represents an utter failure of the Democratic process. It represents the triumph of special interest over the triumph of the public interest. It represents the inability of government to defend the public interest in the face of great pressure from financial interests. We could have recognized the power of government to prime the pump of the economy to get money flowing through out society by creating jobs, health care, and major investments in green energy. What a lost opportunity! What a moment of transition away from democracy and towards domination of America by global economic interests."
Kucinich voted No.
Barbara Lee (CA), another longtime social democrat, explained her initial vote against the bailout:
"First, it does little to address the underlying problem - the foreclosure crisis. We need a moratorium on foreclosures and bankruptcy reform to help people stay in their homes.
"Second, this bill should be paid for by the high-flying industry that created this problem. $700 billion should not be given to Wall Street and the Bush Administration unless those who cause this mess pay for it. We should also prohibit the tax deductibility -and my bill the Income Equity Act (H.R. 3876) would do this across the board - of executive compensation in any company where the highest paid corporate officer is paid more than 25 the times the pay of a bailed-out company's lowest-paid worker.
"And third, we need an economic stimulus package to deal with the crushing reality of the recession that is hitting people hard and growing every day.
"I cannot vote to reward those predatory and subprime lenders who are creating such havoc in the lives of millions of Americans."
The second bill contained none of the items Rep. Lee insisted on, but she voted for it anyway, on Friday.
Of the 21 Black Caucus No votes on Monday, only eight were still standing on Friday: G. K. Butterfield (NC), William "Lacy"Clay (MO), John Conyers (MI), William Jefferson (LA), Hank Johnson (GA), Donald Payne (NJ), Bobby Scott (VA), Bennie Thompson (MS). Of these, only Conyers, Payne, and Scott are consistently progressive, according to the CBC Monitor Report Card.
"The ‘progressive wing' of the Congressional Black Caucus collapsed."
In this time of crisis, when leadership and character are tested, the "progressive wing" of the Congressional Black Caucus collapsed. Most of the vote-switchers claimed Barack Obama had promised them that, "if elected, his administration will aggressively use authority in the bill to prevent foreclosures and stabilize the housing market." That's hard to believe - for me, impossible - since Obama has opposed a freeze on interest rates and a moratorium on foreclosures since the beginning of the subprime debacle, taking positions to the right of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Obama is full of it, and the CBC members know it - but apparently they were ready to surrender.
I tend to believe that, if there were no Barack Obama with his unfailing subservience to Power, the Black Caucus might have remained true to themselves and their constituents by standing up to the corporate juggernaut. But who knows? What is certain is that the CBC, as an institution, will play no people-saving role in the deepening crisis.
As inadequate or obsolete institutions sink into irrelevance, new formations must be created to confront new threats resulting from collapsing structures of capitalism. The fate of societies will depend on their people's ability to forge such institutions under extreme duress. This is the ultimate test of the social compact. The Europeans have their traditions of social democracy. What do we have? We shall see.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].
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