January 20th, a little less then a week from today, will mark the first anniversary of Obama’s inauguration. Obama’s promises of change and reform, as well as the historic nature of electing the first African American President, was able to galvanize the hopes of millions, mobilizing students, workers and communities of color to help bring about an unprecedented Democratic majority in the House and Senate. Before I became a Socialist and a Marxist I was actually one of them, and I remember with a mix of nostalgia and embarrassment supporting him against Clinton in the Primaries even as I began to take left politics more seriously. Yet the campaign promises of Obama as he was elected, not to even mention those pushed in the primaries, seem like a wistful dream compared to the reality of a Democratic Administration.
Today, the list of issues progressive expected real action on reads like a mass funeral
Employee Free Choice Act, expected to reward Organized Labor for the immense support it lent Obama in the election, would have helped to combat the drastically undemocratic and illegal union busting practices of big business. It was eviscerated by Democratic Party controlled Committees before being sent off to die without a fight
Health Care Reform, after having the public option whittled down and finally cast away as “unrealistic” despite broad public support, is set to pass in a form that will drastically reduce access to Abortion for most women and which mandates that everyone purchase a broken product from Private Insurance Companies. It provides some government subsidies which will for all intents and purposes act as a massive financial donation to an industry which has betrayed the interests of Americans for decades. And as if the betrayal of Labor over Employee Free Choice Act was insufficient, the Democratic Party Health Care Plan with the support of Obama rubs sulfuric acid in the wounds with a plan to tax the few, hard won decent healthcare plans that Unions have struggled and sacrificed to maintain, in order to finance a tragically backward reform that stands as a firm rebuke to the popular will in the country and the dreams of so many.
Financial Reform has, despite Trillions of dollars being taken on in debt to cover the costs of a corrupt investment banking system, failed to materialize whatsoever. In fact quite ironically, it’s John McCain who’s proposing a bill for financial reform being opposed by President Obama that does precisely what Obama the candidate claimed was necessary by restoring the Glass-Steagul Banking Act that was repealed under Clinton.
In Foreign Policy despite formally dropping the term “War on Terror” Obama has practically maintained continuity with the Bush administration, from the initial disappointment around the maintenance of Robert Gates as Defense Secretary, to a new surge into Afghanistan, an expansion of bombing into Northern Pakistan and now, recently, the expansion of US Military operations to Yemen. Obama had the audaucity to accept the Nobel Peace Prize and use his platform their to justify a policy of continued militarization and occupation that has brought misery to millions.
Not that long ago in late December, according to a UN investigation, 8 Afghan school children, one as young as 11 years old, were executed by NATO forces, some of them being roused from their sleep and then handcuffed before they were murdered. Crimes like this put to rest claims among some liberals that although Bush waged the war badly, Obama will wage it in a just and humanitarian fashion that would be an exception to the whole history of US Foreign Policy.
Closely related to Foreign Policy is the administrations atrocious failure to make any significant improvement for Civil Liberties. Bush policies on indefinite detention in oversea prisons like Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition of prisoners to be tortured overseas, warrantless wiretapping, trial by military tribunals and protection for officials and corporations involved in violating civil rights have all been continued under Obama.
Much of this I’m sure many of you were aware of, and given your presence tonight I suspect most of you don’t need that much more convincing to be disappointed with the results of the Obama Administration’s first year. However the question in the air in the broader left is how did this come to be? How did the promise of the campaign turn into the reality of a compromised Presidency.
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The answer can be found on two closely related levels. First the nature of the state Obama leads, and the role of the Democratic Party within that State.
First, the big question, What is the State? The State as Marxists have traditionally defined it is the instrument through which one class maintains it’s dictatorship over another. Taken at face value this is an almost indefensible statement, we have a government made up of elected representatives, with near universal suffrage and free elections every two years. Taken in isolation, as frequently done in Political and Social Science classes, our governmental structure is an imperfect if democratic government for which it would be ridiculous to claim it was some sort of dictatorship under the rule of Capitalist Oligarchs, complete with top hats, monocles and cigars, sending out their dictates from a smoke filled back room.
In fact the Marxist view stands completely in opposition to this sort of caricatured view. We could actually even assume for the purpose of argument the most democratic imaginable government, the very ideal of liberal ideology unimpaired by the electoral system, campaign financing, etc.– and we could still claim it to be the instrument of Class Rule. This is because however democratic the government appears in isolation, it can only be understood in the real world as an entity part of and fundamentally shaped by the totality of Global Capitalism.
Everything in the world exists within the reality of Capitalism, a system predicated on the organization of everything that creates social wealth as Private Property, in which the Market will compel the concentration of private property in fewer and fewer hands, shaping a world like the one today, in which just the richest 2% of the world controls half the world’s wealth, in which the poorest 50% of the world controls just 1% of the wealth.*
It is a system driven by the process of accumulation, the search for profit which takes the immense circulation of commodities to a scale almost beyond our comprehension, with Trillions of dollars pouring into this or that region, this or that financial market or sector and rushing back out again in the course of moments of trading on the stock exchange. One which can liquidate factories and jobs, which can make or break lives and bury nations according to the whims of the Market. Under these conditions anything which threatens that process of accumulation, any social program maintained through higher taxes or reform aimed towards reigning in these forces, will be punished by the withdrawal of Capital.
(As a contemporary example, earlier today I was watching an episode of PBS’ Bill Moyer’s Journal, a liberal program, in which they pointed out that in the face of increased taxes and regulations the UK’s local branch of Goldman Sachs was threatening to move to Switzerland.)
This explains why much of the more serious reform expected by people from Obama has failed to materialize, yet even with the role of Capital in mind, much more might be possible even under existing conditions and the parameters of what the Market considers acceptable. This is where the fact of our being a very, very imperfect democracy comes into play and the role of the Democratic Party becomes apparent.
The Democratic Party must be understood as something which is, above all else in the world, committed to electing Democratic Party Politicians. Leadership of movements for Social Justice has never come from Democratic Politicians, the New Deal was the result of concessions wrested by the organized Radicals of the Old Left, the Great Society and Civil Rights legislation was the product of the active struggle of what was and what became the New Left. Throughout the most tense moments of rising struggle, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, every politician in office would tell the movement “Dont hold this march” “Dont be too radical” “Let’s be reasonable and wait”. The movement only advanced when these warnings were defied.
The Democratic Party will adapt itself to whatever way seems the most comfortable way of maintaining power. In our Modern State, this means accommodating to the Corporate Lobbyists that make their election possible, the Democrats took more money in this last election then the Republicans, and keep in mind, it would actually be illegal for a corporation to make any investment it didn’t think would pay off for it’s shareholders. While Capital may be willing to make some concessions, it’s eager to prevent whatever it can and the Democrats are happy to accomodate them.
Lance Selfa in his book The Democrats: A Critical History[Haymarket 2008], highly recommended reading for understanding the present moment by the way, describes the Democrats as “History’s Second Most Enthusiastic Capitalist Party”. It is true that the Republicans are even more objectively the Party of Business, however the Democrats fulfill a very specific role by stepping in whenever people become fed up with blatantly being screwed over, they act effectively as the reserve contender in the Tag Team of one Business Party.
This is not to say Democrats have not implemented changes and very significant reforms, rather that the historical role they fulfill is primarily as the wing of the government which absorbs mass discontent and diffuses it, when they can through nothing but symbolic changes, when they must through the implementation of real reform. Today, the Democrats have not been forced by a large enough swell of popular upheaval to be made to implement real gains for the Working Class.
(Though here at the UC we may be beginning to see a change to this state of affairs, although Schwarzenegger’s proposal is fundamentally flawed and must be opposed, the acknowledgement that the protests were the reason for it shows we are starting to have an impact)
In Sum, there has not been Change because the balance of Class forces is not yet in our favor, the will of the Working Class which constitutes the vast majority of the population, has on the one hand been diffused into the Democrats and on the other has not adopted the depth of anger that can be directed towards more threatening, revolutionary acts. If we are to win reforms, from the Republicans, the Democrats, and who knows, maybe some Third Party soon, then we must focus on building the kind of independent infrastructure through Mass work like the fight against the Budget Cuts and through the strengthening of Revolutionary organizations like the ISO that can help direct discontent into rank and file militancy that can change the world.
Throughout history radical organizations have played an essential part in building and pushing forward meaningful protests. From the dawn of the labor movement and the struggle for an 8 hour day to the General Strikes and Unemployed Riots of the 1930′s, from the Civil Rights movement of the 60′s and the contemporary movement for LGBT Equality, the struggle against War and the fight to stop Budget Cuts, Organized Socialists have been the most consistent, dedicated activists most clearly able to understand theoretically and practically how to encourage and direct rank and file struggle. Socialists are the ones who helped bring you the weekend, decent working wages, public education, voting rights and welfare, and as we enter a new period of struggle to defend and advance those past gains, you can expect socialists to continue that leading role. But, if we are going to win real change, we’ll need a lot more socialists to do it. And that’s why we need you to join us and help us in the struggle for a better world.
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