The electoral left has a secret, albeit underutilized, asset. Almost no one in this benighted land knows that the Congressional Progressive Caucus is larger now than the Tea Party Caucus ever has been—yet given its relative influence on the national discourse, the CPC’s anonymity is no surprise. The progressive caucus is simply not as aggressive or as focused a political force as the tea party.
This has to change, and if it does, progressives will go into the next election cycle holding a winning hand. All they have to do is boldly introduce themselves to the public, establish very clearly what they stand for and present themselves as a unified front in 2016. Even if they just hold on to the seats they currently hold, the results will have the appearance of a national victory for a unified insurgent movement.
This might seem like petty gamesmanship, but it’s not. The GOP has been running on economic populism, claiming to represent the interests of working people, and winning elections. To date, the Democrats have failed pathetically to expose this lie—and only leftist progressives can really make the case.
Translation: Maybe Democrats would have a better chance of winning running as Democrats rather than GOP Lite.
TruthdigWe all know the right-wing media machine would create a cacophony about the horrors of Big Government, but if you list the components of what a leftist progressive platform might look like, it’s clear that many of the policies would have majority support:
- Social Security funded for the next century (with the possibility of expanding it) by raising the cap on income levels contributing into the system, while maintaining a cap on payments
- A single payer (Medicare for all) health system
- Free public education through college
- A sharp increase in the national minimum wage and two weeks of paid vacation for all workers
- Rapid citizenship for immigrant workers and their families
- Ending the war on drugs and decriminalization
- Ending government spying
- Sane gun laws
- Support for a woman’s right to choose and equal pay legislation
- Reform of the justice system so that it applies equally to all people
- Invest in green energy and take the lead in combating global warming globally
- Shift foreign policy to support people and not every region’s 1 percent
- As for funding fiscal policy, there’s no need for making income tax levels more progressive (since the change in Social Security achieves that already)—but, in accordance with “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” author Thomas Piketty, raise the rate on capital gains. Also bring corporate taxes back in to line with pre-Reagan era levels by both closing loopholes and raising the tax rate on profits.
- And finally, a program dear to my late father’s (economist Hyman Minsky) heart—an employer of last resort (ELR) program, like Roosevelt’s CCC. (This is probably too radical a proposal for many members of the current CPC, but not for some.) And if not this ambitious plan, a basic national income. I think ELR would work much better and also make a real contribution to elements of the economy that the market addresses inadequately; and it can be organized so that localities have control over ELR projects. ELR’s possibilities for transforming society are immense, but either ELR or a basic income program would conquer poverty like nothing we’ve seen in our lives and empower workers who would no longer fear leaving wretched jobs.
- If the tax increases on the wealthy and corporations aren’t enough to cover the costs, there’s a bloated military budget to shrink.
A program like this would take America off of its neoliberal course. It directly addresses the fears and anxieties of a precarious, under-compensated citizenry, and it’s no more radical than the approach espoused by the greatest Democrat of the 20th century, FDR.
Will it win majority support in the 2016 election cycle? Unlikely, but given the security of progressives already in office, there’s no harm in trying—and if leftist progressives get it in front of Americans for consideration, the next time the economy implodes … let’s just say it’s going to prove mighty compelling.
This Democratic Party Is Going Nowhere. Can Progressives Take it Over and Change the World?Alan Minsky | program director of KPFK Radio Los Angeles
Alan Minsky is the son of Hyman Minsky.
Alan Minsky is the son of Hyman Minsky.
5 comments:
By the standards of the early 20th century Progressives, this isn't much of a list. So in the spirit of the Non-Partisan League, try:
1) Re-criminalization of usury
2) Publicly-owned banks like the Bank of North Dakota.
3) A system of retail banking like postal banking.
4) A scheme to subsidize the young who want to start farming, a business, or buy an affordable house.
5) Entrepreneur failure insurance—like unemployment insurance but for people who have lost their businesses.
6) The ability of people to discharge student loans through bankruptcy.
7) Democratic controls over money creation—the Fed chairman should stand for national election.
8) Enforcement of the full-employment provisions of Humphrey-Hawkins.
Etc.!
Interesting that Minsky's son is OK with a BIG. Hyman despised transfer programs.
It's not clear whether Alan was referring to a means-tested BIG or a UBI?
But, I can't get excited about Alan's political wishful thinking. The CPC is not very progressive (i.e., they are pro-deficit reduction). On most critical votes, they carry water for the pary. They have zero power because of the pay-to-play rule -- committee chair positions have to be PURCHASED, which means the pol has to take money from corporations, and if you take money from corporations then you're not progressive.
@Jonathan Larson, a means-tested BIG would serve the purpose of "entrepreneur failure insurance," since the entrepreneur would have the BIG to fall back on.
Minsky opposed BIGs and the like as economic programs, and was proved right by the course of events. A real "UBI" BIG is simply impossible, and a means-tested BIG is just "welfare" - we have it now. Been there, done that. His son, not an economist, does not understand economics as well as he did. Had Minsky's New Deal / WPA course been followed in the 60s instead of the "Keynesian" fine-tuners, the world would be a very different place.
If one understands monetary economics and pays attention to history - as the poor and the rich do, while the middles succumb to weird delusions - one understands that disinflationary living wage full employment targeted at, uh, the unemployed, a JG is more important and beneficial than the rest of the wish list put together. It will eradicate poverty by removing its primary cause, the absence of decent jobs, and enormously benefit those who are lucky enough to have decent jobs in the current absurd state. That's why the rich class has always hated a JG, and work so hard to bamboozle the middles. They know it works.
Three things at least are necessary to free workers from the harness imposed on them by the "bourgeois capitalists" aka "acquisitors," who believe that the purpose of live is to accumulate wealth and that the economy should leave them free to do so without limit. This involves commanding the surplus created by work.
Workers comprise at least 90 % of the population in most developed countries and 99% in most emerging countries. The end is view is to begin to dismantle bourgeois capitalism and give workers control of their lives instead of their being controlled.
The first factor is the ability to organize in order to meet organization with organization. Individuals negotiating with organizations is a huge asymmetry of power.
Secondly, a social safety net is required to catch those that would otherwise fall through the institutional cracks. Institutions by and large create these cracks, although individual destiny does also, and institutional arrangements need to include nets for those that fall outside the system for various reasons most often through no fault of their own, since the majority are children.
Thirdly, a job guarantee is needed to create a buffer stock of employed in order to reverse the buffer stock of unemployed that bourgeoise capitalism requires to "discipline labor" and suppress wages.
The question is not whether these factors need to be instituted, but how. They can be designed institutionally in different ways. The debate needs to be about how to this most efficiently and effectively from a systems POV.
Most important, however, is understanding theory of money and monetary economics, since a modern monetary economy is based on this. Without understanding this and taking charge of it, workers will never be able to free themselves completely and they'll always be baaack.
QUOTES - FROM PROMINENT PEOPLE - ABOUT MONEY (disregard the few quotes about sound money).
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