Richard Lachmann - First-Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship - Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers

ELITE POLITICS AND THE DECLINE OF GREAT POWERS

RICHARD LACHMANN

First published by Verso 2020

Richard Lachmann 2020

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

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ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-407-3

ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-409-7 (UK EBK)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-410-3 (US EBK)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

Typeset in Minion by Hewer Text (UK) Ltd, Edinburgh

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

For my children,

Madeleine and Derrick

I began thinking of writing a book about US decline at the end of the George W. Bush administration and finished it in the early months of Donald Trumps presidency. My concern, then and now, has not been with the men elected president, and not much with the voters who elect them. It is not that elections do not matter; they do, although, as I will try to explain, only in limited and occasional ways. Much of American domestic policy, and almost all of US foreign policy, is determined by elites who are only somewhat constrained by voter preferences and decisions. What seemed remarkable and worthy of sociological inquiry was not Bushs own personal stupidity or viciousness but the lack, until late in his presidency, of a credible challenge to his policies from any significant power base. As for Trump, we will see if the level of opposition shown in the first years of his presidency is sustained, if it weakens or intensifies. In any case, most of his substantive policies were proposed by earlier Republican politicians at the behest of the elites who fund them, which is why most Republican members of Congress voted to repeal Obamacare and to enact tax cuts that funneled two-thirds of the benefits to the top 1 percent, regardless of their constituents disapproval and dismay.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who seemed destined to succeed him, certainly offered programs to mitigate and reverse aspects of American decline, both at home and as the dominant geopolitical power. I wrote the bulk of the substantive chapters during the Obama presidency and saw little sign that his policies, to the extent that he actually could legislate and implement them, would do anything more than cushion the effects of decline on ordinary Americans. The accomplishments of the Obama years are no small thing for those who gained access to health care and other social benefits or were protected from financial fraud or danger to their health and safety at work and in the environment. However, what Obama offered were gifts from on high, and he did not create political coalitions that could push for further advances or challenge elite power.

Nothing Obama did, or Hillary Clinton might have done, posed a significant challenge to elites capacities to serve their own interests at the expense of their nations hegemony and of their fellow citizens well-being. Indeed, a narrow elite has been able to prevent policy shifts that would endanger their ability to enrich themselves in the pursuit of fossil fuels that are altering the earths environment in ways that will cause mass extinctions and render the planet unable to support the current human population of 7 billion. Non-elites, perhaps not in America but certainly in much of the world, will be not just impoverished but killed by global climate change.

As I will argue, it is time to move beyond the fruitless hope that there is a plausible path to reverse or even slow American decline. Instead, the choices that remain are, as they were for inhabitants of the declining Dutch and British hegemons, about who will suffer the effects of decline. In the past, the costs of decline were spread widely, exempting only a narrow, privileged elite. National decline, therefore, becomes decline in most peoples standard of living and sense of well-being. As such, it provokes varying responses, including anger, resignation, solidarity, collective action, mutual animosity, militarism, racism, religiosity, and, yes, plans for reform.

Those reactions do not act directly to produce significant social change. Most often, the actors are inchoate, and their rage and pain are diverted into support for politicians and policies that further elite interests. When anti-elite forces focus their energies on electoral politics, their influence is uneven and of limited efficacy. The small achievements of popular forces in post-hegemonic Britain and the Netherlands illustrate the highly limited parameters of reform and redistribution unless and until those reactions create or revivify political organizations that can challenge elites. However, even when discontent is channeled into mass organizations, those organizations act on a domestic political field on which other forces are arrayed and which is affected by actors located in places abroad that are within or escaping the nations hegemonic sphere. All this needs to be taken into account as we trace the varying paths, through organizational structures and contingent events, that lead from the emotions provoked by decline to stasis or transformative actions.

Our analysis, therefore, needs to focus on the question of whether the loss of hegemony can in itself disrupt fossilized domestic or global politics in ways that would undermine elite power. That will allow us to identify the narrow range of plausible political strategies and to be honest about what can actually be accomplished in this moment by engaging with American citizens.

This, then, is a book that aims to be precise in its analysis of how we arrived at the present situation, and how Americas trajectory compares with those of past hegemons. To the extent that I have accomplished that task, this book, by drawing on both historical comparison and contemporary evidence, reaches a pessimistic but realistic conclusion.

I had conflicting emotions as I worked on this project. As a sociologist, I feel enormously privileged to have a front-row seat in observing a major historical transformation, and I hope this book, which is directed primarily, but certainly not exclusively, at social scientists and historians, succeeds in addressing the decline of the United States in rigorous analytical terms. At the same time, as someone who has spent my entire life in a First World democracy (however limited) and who would like my children to have that same option, I regard this countrys present trajectory with horror.

I believe any contribution I can make as a social scientist and a citizen has to be grounded in my capacity for precise analysis and a willingness not to let my hopes and desires for a better future lead me to empty exhortations or to draw implausible conclusions about what political action or an improbable deus ex machina might produce. Our energies are limited and they should not be squandered. A realistic assessment of elites vulnerability can help us to focus our intellectual and organizational efforts where they can be most effective. For that reason, analysis must precede exhortation. I have tried, in this book, to bring my energy and abilities to the former task. I hope my contribution helps to map the terrain for those with the ability to inspire others to action.