The brutal version of Capitalism implemented in the 21st c US has generated terrible outcomes; our economy is at a treacherous nadir and what little we have we've distributed more inequitably than ever. Further, the Right is waging a winning war to further immiserate the middle and working classes in the US. In the post-War, Social Europe has struggled with real and difficult challenges trying to negotiate and sustain the social welfare state and social safety nets as a quid pro quo for the taming of unions and the revolutionary left. With the apparent extinction of the Soviet threat as a revolutionary alternative, the European Right has begun to renege on that quid pro quo just at a time when the world economy has had its powerbase shifted Eastward. But in the US, we have not even tried to strike up such a bargain. Our corporate-government alliance and our far-right-of-center mainstream have acted throughout the Cold War as if Socialism was never really a negotiating threat of the American Left. So working people in this country have had, since at least 1975, neither sufficient union power nor social safety nets to protect them. It is not surprising in that light that the real incomes of most Americans have fallen for 35 years: they have had no power in the bilateral bargain.
Further, in the US, the Right brilliantly formulated an immensely successful rhetorical strategy in the 1990s. (Lakoff, Moral Politics.) In a democratic system you need 50%+1 to support you at the polls. What hope does a party representing the economic interests of 1-5% have? Surprisingly, a lot. By creating false and tenuous connections between the tax and corporate policy needs of the wealthy and powerful and the values of social conservatives, the hidden oligarchs have managed to get working class whites to fight passionately to keep federal income tax rates on the top 1% at near-historic lows. Social conservatives think they are fighting for eliminating abortions, gay marriage, and social safety nets that interfere with what they think of as essential individual accountability but what they are getting is a tax code that makes sure that corporations are first class citizens and they come second. In the end, whether or not what social conservatives want is something you value or find repugnant, they are being cheated by a clever oligarchy that has their vote but not their interests at heart.
The Left faces a different challenge. While the leadership of the Left is not nearly as clear about what it wants as is the Right, they are also disorganized about how to organize and negotiate. President Obama bought into Boehner's used car salesmanship and let Boehner anchor the negotiations on a far-right opening bid. Instead of seeking to re-anchor the negotiations on the far-left and fight his way to the middle, Obama thought he would try to "be reasonable" and "be liked" and so "build a working relationship." When I overpay for a car, the auto salesmen likes me too and he's not unhappy to see me again in a few years, either. The GOP leadership secretly likes -- no loves -- Obama for making their lives so easy. But they know well it doesn't serve them to admit to this; their desire for more is insatiable, so they start anew with demagoguery and hard bargaining, and the leadership of the Left behaves like so many forlorn and naive schoolchildren wondering how the Right can be so mean and unfair.
The intellectual Right would have you think this is a choice between Keynes and Hayek; a choice between liberal fiscal stimulus, big government and the path to serfdom, on the one hand, or a slow and begrudging recession/depression which needs to be suffered until the working classes accept significant declines in their standards of living in exchange for a new capitalist market equilibrium of near-full employment at vastly lowered real wages. American business is competitive again on the backs of the working poor, but that's all the poor deserve for, as Cain says, if you are not rich it is your own damn fault. American capitalism had a place for you at the dais if you only behaved the way you should. The PR men on the Right keep the details quiet; promoting the idea that the market will "solve" these problems in the long run apparently meets their personal standards for ethical communication. It is, after all, true that in the long run, the poor will be beaten down enough to go back to work at vastly reduced wages and so unemployment will indeed decline to its 'natural' levels. But in the long run, as their arch nemesis famously said, we're all dead.
The intellectual Left seems unable to articulate its position. Some, e.g., Krugman, remind us that a 3 trillion dollar recession needed a whole lot more stimulus to have a chance. Even if hundreds of billions sounded like a surreal package, it was too small. Others, like Reich, remind us that the only other time we had this level of inequality in the US was at the onset of the Great Depression. The Communist Left died off when Krushchev aired Stalin's dirty laundry, and the Socialist Left refused to learn the lessons of 1919-1954, and decided to start anew in the 60s calling upon only not much more of the lessons of the left than Brown v Board of Education, Topeka, KS. Years later, having won only some of the much needed civil rights gains to which the Left aspired, they find themselves without the class tools to actually wage the class warfare they badly need and of which, ironically, they are accused.
All this said, I think supporters of Occupy Wall Street should rise above the pettiness of the Fox News's contrasting views of this movement and the Tea Party. Both movements include some good people honestly and legitimately fighting against power. (Both movements include some who are confused, too.)
The Right has always been inspired by a distrust of government power; the Left of corporate power. Where is the place or party for those of us who despise and fear all brands of power?
The problem is concentration of power, whether it be corporate or government. If the corporate media and the framing right oligarchs were not in charge of the our mindsets, Tea Partiers and 99%'ers would see that they are in the same boat, and have much the same enemy: manipulative power interests who remain unaccountable. Both Leftists and Rightists should be taking both the Tea Party and 99%'ers seriously, for at the core they are both right: a democracy cannot function if there is any principle higher than one person, one vote.
