Between Paleoliberalism and Neoliberalism: Latinos Past and Future

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By Aaron E. Sanchez, Commentary y Cuentos

By Judging by the changing prefixes—paleo, neo, new paleo—it would seem that American liberalism is in flux.  In her most recent and most touted economic address, Hillary Clinton has returned to the liberal belief in government intervention, probably pushed there by Bernie Sanders.  Her speech has received attention but not necessarily celebration.  She has been criticized for not addressing income inequality with redistribution policies.  In a very smartessay, Matthew Yglesias called Clinton a “new paleoliberal.” That is, she has revived some very important beliefs of a pre-Reagan era that saw its highpoint between 1963-1968 in the LBJ administration.  Namely, Clinton believes that government can be part of the solution and the market has been part of the larger problem of increasing economic inequality in the post-1970s U.S.  David Brooks of the New York Times wrote that Clinton’s belief in government solutions was “epistemologically naïve” and politically unwise.  Brooks reasons that voters no longer believe that the government can solve the big problems the nation is facing.  This is true, in part.  Americans’ optimism in the government has waned since the 1970s, with cynicism spread by both the left and the right.

[pullquote]For the Latina/o community living in the fluctuations between neoliberalism and a renascent paleoliberalism—two very different political perspectives—there is something very real at stake.  More than just comprehensive immigration reform, the economic future and social position of their communities are in the balance.[/pullquote]

Clinton wants to return to the “good old days”

Clinton’s renewed optimism in government backed solutions to systemic problems is important for the Latina/o community because in a poll conducted for UNIVISION Noticias she leads the presidential pack in the Latino community.  Clinton would receive 64 percent of the general Latino vote, while the closest Republican hopeful, Jeb Bush, would only receive 27 percent.  Among Latino Democrats, she has 73% of the vote, while her contenders are largely unknown (68 percent did not know or had not formed an opinion of Bernie Sanders and 74 percent did not know or had not formed an opinion of Martin O’Malley).

In her speech on Monday, Clinton called for a return to a prior era of prosperity in which government policies set the foundation for the economic boom of the mid-twentieth century.  She called for a return to the good ol’ days of the past: “previous generations of Americans built the greatest economy and strongest middle class the world has even known on the promise of a basic bargain: if you work hard and do your part, you should be able to get ahead.”  Hard work was aided, of course, by liberal social policies and progressive taxes, which remained high until the Reagan tax cuts of 1981.  During this prior golden age, government was ambitious in its goals and desires to affect national and international change.  Roosevelt’s New Deal changed the country dramatically, showing the promises of an activist state; Eisenhower built the largest transportation infrastructure the world had seen; Kennedy wanted to make science-fiction a reality by putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade; and most ambitiously, LBJ wanted to end poverty in the U.S.  The right mix of union jobs, progressive taxation, government spending, quality public and higher education, postwar optimism, and Keynesianism economics made Americans certain that full employment and endless economic growth was a possibility.  During LBJ’s War on Poverty, the government spent millions upon millions on social programs, but they were overshadowed by both the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement.  Unfortunately, at the end of Johnson’s administration after massive spending, he had only lowered poverty from 20 percent to 13 percent.  By the beginning of the 1970s, the global economy was changing. The industrial-manufacturing sector was leaving the U.S. for Mexico, as the maquiladora system first took shape, and later to other places like Asia.  Unions declined, the economy faltered through the ‘70s, and government spending seemed to aid very little.  For many, it seemed that the liberal project had failed.

Today’s problems were inherent in yesterday’s solutions

[pullquote]By the beginning of the 1970s, the global economy was changing. For many, it seemed that the liberal project had failed.[/pullquote]

To compound these changes, liberal policies had unintentionally and intentionally excluded minority communities.  Roosevelt needed Southern Democrats’ support to pass Social Security in the 1930s and at their behest left out protections for agricultural and domestic workers.  In the South, this excluded nearly all African-Americans and in the Southwest it had similar effects on Mexican-Americans. Government housing programs encouraged racial segregation through segregated government housing, redlining, and preferential treatment of white borrowers from the ‘30s through the ‘60s.  The system of roads that spread across the nation encouraged suburbanization and allowed white suburbanites to bypass altogether urban communities, which, because of housing policies, became increasingly racialized through the ‘50s (helping to create the segregated suburbs of today).  While some of LBJ’s War on Poverty funds made their way to minority communities in the late 1960s, like the Mexican American Unity Council in San Antonio, much of the funds were aimed primarily at white poverty.  As minority communities began to protest their social and political exclusion in the Civil Rights Movement, they soon found themselves targets of police violence and FBI investigations that infringed upon their civil rights.  The Vietnam War, for many activists, was the ultimate symbol of American moral depravity.  The long decade of the ‘60s revealed to so many that the government was not a force for good or social change but instead a corrupt institution interested in corporate profit and colonial expansion.

[pullquote]In the wake, conservatives played upon racial and economic anxieties caused by monumental shifts of the previous decades.[/pullquote]

In the wake, conservatives played upon racial and economic anxieties caused by monumental shifts of the previous decades.  Integration and deindustrialization, not to mention gay rights and women’s rights, made the world a dramatically different place.  For an increasing number of white Americans government destroyed American society and failed to fix the economy.  When Reagan rose to the presidency in 1980, his statement that government was the problem and not the solution rang true for many.  The belief in the abstract free hand of the market replaced the strong hand of the government as the primary mechanism for social and political change.  The democratic freedom of choice was supplanted by the freedom to purchase and choose from a wide range of commodities.  The ability for individuals to compete in society, not cooperate together, became the popular metonym for American meritocracy and democracy.

Democrats in 2016 cannot be political paleontologists.

[pullquote]Liberalism declined in the 1970s for many reasons, but crucial for Clinton and Democrats to understand is that many liberal policies and politicians of the past ignored the constituencies they were supposed to help. [/pullquote]

Liberalism declined in the 1970s for many reasons, but crucial for Clinton and Democrats to understand is that many liberal policies and politicians of the past ignored the constituencies they were supposed to help.  These communities are now the constituencies that they need in order to win national elections.  Democrats in 2016 cannot be political paleontologists.  They cannot settle for excavating the fossils of liberal ideas or exhuming the corpse of a mummified statist liberalism.  They cannot be simple paleoliberals.  Their policies cannot ignore and marginalize minority communities.  They must be concerned with the racial outcomes, not only the racist intent of policies.  While Bill Clinton provided a new model for Democrats in 1992, a liberal neoliberal, his model failed in creating a more just society.  Bill Clinton conceded to the superiority of the free market, believing the main role of government in addressing inequality was providing quality public and higher education.  He continued unfair mandatory sentencing that punished crack cocaine and powder cocaine unevenly at rates of 100 to 1 and scored political points by trimming welfare rolls.  Today Hillary, Sanders, and O’Malley must learn from the past.  They must combine the positive policies of the past and acknowledge the very different economic and political present.  They must combat the cynicism of both the New Right and New Left that asserted that all government efforts were ineffectual and unproductive.  It will be difficult.  The paleoliberalism of the mid twentieth century had a nation that believed that they were living in a new age of ever-growing abundance.  Today, in the age of the neoliberal consensus, that has been replaced by the deep fear that were are living in an age of unrivaled scarcity, one that will not improve and will only worsen.  For the Latina/o community living in the fluctuations between neoliberalism and a renascent paleoliberalism—two very different political perspectives—there is something very real at stake.  More than just comprehensive immigration reform, the economic future and social position of their communities are in the balance.

This article was originally published in Commentary y Cuentos.


Aaron E. Sanchez is the editor of Commentary and Cuentos, a blog focused on issues of race, politics, and popular culture from a Latino perspective. The posts place these issues in historical, cultural, and intellectual context to better understand our present. Aaron received his Ph.D. in history from Southern Methodist University. He is a happy husband, proud father, and an avid runner.

[Photo Marc Nozell/Flickr]
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