The American Model at Risk
And Obama’s carrying the hot stick.
American social ethics are much different from the rest of the developed world. When speaking of social ethics, the typical comparison is made between American and Europe. America is typically seen as very non-supportive of the indigent and the impoverished. Very unlike the common European welfare state, we take to the adage that worthy human beings ought to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” not helped up by social welfare programs. In America, there is a heavy emphasis on personal financial responsibility; relish and float your accomplishments, but don’t come crying when you fall through the cracks.
The bulk of the American nation is composed of tacit (and explicit) Randian admirers. There is something noble about the tireless entrepreneur, the visionary businessman, and the self-made industrialist. We have a well-founded and historical distrusts of government interference in our personal lives, especially when it interferes with our pocketbooks. We become border-line belligerent when confronted with the idea of transferring wealth or paying higher taxes for dubious social programs. My money is my money, not yours. Why should I pay for that which I may not use. Taking our money is commensurate to truncating our freedom. Not something taken lightly in America. Like a swallowing a dose of bitter medicine, we concede only with great reluctance. The idea of grandiose social programs and spreading wealth to other social classes is repugnant to Americans. Anything resembling “socialism” is likely to receive a McCarty-like reception. We loathe the welfare state.
This American social ethics model seems very harsh if the other side is not revealed. There is one condition that must be met in order to validate the “hands-off” American model: high employment. It’s by the same American social ethics that one finds a high emphasis placed on high levels of employment. The logic is simple. High levels of employment justify the rugged individualistic attitude of Americas. If one is employed, then taking life by the reigns is perceived as possible. However, without it, the American model is invalid. If employment is high and job elasticity flexible, then, the argument goes, we have the freedom to choose. Without this freedom to choose, nothing but great consternation and discontent can follow.
America has a historically high level of employment. When I say historically, I’m really referring to the last 30 years or so. American unemployment rate has typically been between 4 and 5 percent, compared to rates double that in the European welfare states. The double-digit levels of unemployment, common in Europe, would be quite intolerable in the United States. Why it is tolerable in Europe and not so in America probably has more to do with respective attitudes toward social and individual responsibilities, a topic for another day.
This leads me to a major issues in America right now. Despite the hedging of a major recession unemployment remains historically high. Herein lies a major issue for Obama, his credibility and political efficacy on the line. The current jobless rate is a staggering 10.2%, a 26-year high coming in just under the 1980s peak of 10.8%. This is the “official jobless rate,” a measurement that defines the labor force as the number of people employed plus the number of unemployed but seeking work. It excludes those “discouraged workers” who have given up on finding work due to an unfavorable economic environment. If you take into account a broader measure of unemployment, the percentage is significantly different. The broader measure of U.S. unemployment stands at 17.5% – that’s one out of every six workers unemployed. Quite a staggering difference.
The result of high unemployment in the U.S. is the discrediting of a firmly entrenched model. However, this type of discrediting doesn’t produce a paradigm shift. Instead, this type of discontent is one that tends to precipitate political change. It is consistency that is sought after, not structural overhaul. This is without a doubt something that must be in the back (or perhaps the front) of Obama’s mind if re-election is of any concern. The American model doesn’t bend much in the face of high unemployment. Thus Americans aren’t likely to tolerate high levels of unemployment for very long. High unemployment discredits the American model. Unfortunately, high – and possibly higher – levels of unemployment are in many an economists’ forecast. It’s much too early to proclaim a nail in the coffin. But the tool box may be open.
So, what happened? The extent of my analysis won’t speculate too far, but I’ll point to economist Paul Krugman for his good – and usually right – analysis. To Krugman, the problem was that the seemingly huge economic stimulus package wasn’t actually all that big. In fact, it was way too small. Herein lies one of the major barriers to full economic recovery and the source of major economic and political concern for Obama.
The bad employment report [in] June made it clear that the stimulus was, indeed, too small. But it also damaged the credibility of the administration’s economic stewardship. There’s now a real risk that President Obama will find himself caught in a political-economic trap. [emphasis mine]
How serious will this political-economic trap be? Perhaps just another hurdle to overcome for our extremely able-bodied President. But maybe the trap will be too deep and suffocating to escape. There seems to be an extremely negative attitude fomenting amidst the jobless recovery. People are feeling sold-out and deceived. What started out as a real opportunity to fix serious structural flaws turned into an abandonment of average Main Street folk for cocktail drinking Wall Street executives. Wall Street was bailed out an the expense of the everyone else, figuratively and literally. Those responsible for the credit collapse that precipitated the recession were given a golden parachute while those not part of the Wall Street elite were given an anvil. Add this to the relative levels of discontent over the lack of Democratic leadership towards health care reform and you’ve got one nasty looking political-economic predicament. The result is a feeling of uncertainty, at best, and betrayal, at absolute worst. There is evidence that suggests a backlash in the progressive base – the same base that helped Obama clean-up during the general election. Or worse yet, some have even go so far as to suggest that the government has broken its end of the social contract – quite a damning accusation.
I don’t mean to be a complete pessimist. Despite all the problems that Obama faces, I think he’s got the smarts and know-how to properly address — well, I hope he does. One thing is certain, though. Obama has hit blunt reality. Although he maintains intellectual and rhetorical skills par excellence, that doesn’t always translate into good governance or a re-election. 2012 may be an(other) interesting election.
I agree with you wholeheartedly about the importance of employment to what you’re calling the American model. The thing that bothers me sometimes is that we tend to think of history as only the last 30 years or so and in truth we have no reason to believe that the postwar boom in employment and growth is self-sustaining. I also worry that we’ve turned the DJIA into a marker for the health of the general economy and it may actually only be a marker of the health of those cocktail-swilling Wall Street types.
I agree that 2012 will be interesting, but I think the most interesting part of it will be the Republican primary. Since Obama’s election, there have been really interesting things happening within the GOP and it is unclear how those forces will manifest themselves during the primary. I tend to think that they will propel some radical conservatives who are too far out of reach to grab independents and moderates.
The conventional wisdom is that presidential reelections ask the question “are you happy with the last 4 years and would you be happy with another 4 like them?” But that may not be true. That was the prevailing theme when Clinton ousted Bush in 1992, but it wasn’t the prevailing factor in 1996 when Clinton was reelected. In 2004, Kerry tried to make that argument, but it turns out that it matters who the challenger is. People don’t just think about it as a yes or no answer to the above question. Even though most people thought the country was on the wrong path in 2004 and were unhappy with the wars and economy, Kerry was painted as a radical liberal and a pansy and people were afraid to elect him.
I think the same thing will happen in 2012 and make “the question” on Obama somewhat irrelevant. It will definitely be interesting.
So, it isn’t a question but rather a person?
What if the GOP turns out a solid, likable candidate? I know that doesn’t seem likely, but the GOP has traditionally been more efficient and better able to rally around a single cause. That cause this time around seems to be party survival. So, I suppose that could certainly produce a radical candidate, but what if it doesn’t?
Like who? McCain seemed like that – a likeable non-ideologue. But he won the primary by a fluke and had to shift hard right during the process (culminating in Palin).
If the GOP nominates a reasonable ticket, then it could be about Obama.
I’ve no idea. Bloomberg? My Dad would vote for him.
I would vote for Christie Todd Whitman but they seem to have spirited her away to Cheney’s undisclosed location.
“What if the GOP turns out a solid, likable candidate?”
That’s a good one.
Where are they going to get this solid, likable candidate? Build it from spare parts?
Not to worry, the vocal wing of the party is an angry mob. They don’t want a solid likable candidate. The sole determinant in the 2012 election will be how much hatred the GOP can fuel for Obama.
If Jesus descended from on high during the half-time show at the Super Bowl in 2012, decided he liked it here and chose to run for President as a republican, he couldn’t possibly get through the primary. He would want people to have healthcare, tell them not to worry about their taxes, he would hire unemployed people, he wouldn’t support any of the wars, raise the miniumum wage, he’d tell Israel to get out of the West Bank and stop tormenting the Palestinians, he’d take our nukes apart and use the fuel to produce energy, downsize the military, promote immigration, provide amnesty to illegals, feed the poor, save the whales, end the death penalty, let out enough prisoners so we don’t incarcerate more people than any other country on earth… You get the idea.
How could he get to be the republican nominee with that platform and the religious right screaming “socialist” and demanding to see a birth certificate?
The main difference between JFK and Jesus is JFK’s dad had enough money to get him elected president. God doesn’t have enough money to get solid, likable republican elected based on his or her merits. Fueling hatred of Obama will be the way to go.
Probably. The comment was made more in jest than anything.
I liked your rant though. But remember, everyone has their own Jesus. I’ve always preferred the Jesus who made asses out of the Pharisees, Socratic-style. That always appealed to me.
I agree. Whom would that Jesus turn his rhetoric onto today?
Lou Dobbs or Charles Schumer?
John Boehner or Barak Obama?
Joe Biden or Sarah Palin?
I think in each case it would be “the conservative” that had something to worry about in the event of Christ’s return.
On meet the press yesterday they had Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT). The problem with the republican party today is that thinking people, myself included, left during the Bush years for a number of reasons which include:
* Republicans trampled our civil liberties while claiming they were the party of freedom.
* Republicans claimed to better utilize our military but then they nearly destroyed it and at least threw it into a quagmire we will never be able to extract it from to use it in the foreseeable future.
* Republicans claimed government was bad and the source rather than the cause of the problem and then proved their point by making the government bigger, more intrusive, more expensive and an even bigger problem.
* Republicans freely embraced government as a means of expanding and promoting their religious principles.
I could go on but back to Graham and Sanders on Meet the Press. Yesterday, this southern, fiscally conservative libertarian agrees with the socialist from Vermont on more issues than the Republican from South Carolina.
The Republicans and the Democrats are both going to expand government, spending and the national debt. The difference is that the Republicans admit upfront that the government can’t solve problems. At least the Democrats believe they can do something positive with more money and a bigger government. I assume both parties will fail in their efforts but at least the Democrats will pay for their mistakes as they go instead of putting it on a charge card and bankrupting the country.
The 2012 election may turn out to be just as interesting as the 2008 one, albeit much less historic.
I tend to air on the side of fiscal stimulus and government intervention during times of crisis. However, I don’t think the democrats went big enough. They did some patch work, mainly palliative stuff, but avoided going deep enough to secure high employment levels and thus the citizens’ trust. If the modern Republican party wasn’t such a joke they’d probably have a pretty good chance. I’m not ruling our their ability to “reform,” but it’s not likely.