This article originally appeared in the Fall 2011 Issue of Dissent.
For over a century, liberals and radicals have seen the possibility of
change in capitalist systems from one of two perspectives: the reform
tradition assumes that corporate institutions remain central to the
system but believes that regulatory policies can contain, modify, and
control corporations and their political allies. The revolutionary
tradition assumes that change can come about only if corporate
institutions are eliminated or transcended during an acute crisis,
usually but not always by violence. But what happens if a system
neither reforms nor collapses in crisis?
Quietly, a different kind of progressive
change is emerging, one that involves a transformation in institutional structures and
power, a process one could call “evolutionary
reconstruction.” At the height of the financial
crisis in early 2009, some kind of nationalization of the banks seemed possible. “The
public hates bankers right now,” the
Brookings Institution’s Douglas Elliot
observed. “Truthfully, you would find considerable support for hanging a number of
bankers…” It was a moment, Barack Obama
told banking CEOs, when his administration
was “the only thing between you and the
pitchforks.” But the president opted for a soft
bailout engineered by Treasury Secretary
Timothy Geithner and White House economic
adviser Lawrence Summers. Whereas Franklin
Roosevelt attacked the “economic royalists”
and built and mobilized his political base,
Obama entered office with an already
organized base and largely ignored it.
When the next financial crisis occurs, and it
will, a different political opportunity may be
possible. Read More »