Book Review: Come Home, America

In Come Home, America, William Greider outlines a program of changes that would, in his opinion, make the United States a happier place in which to live and a better influence on international events. Greider also complains that the United States is, at best, a dysfunctional democracy with both major parties more inclined to pursue the objectives of big business, in general, and the financial establishment, in particular. At the same time, Greider asserts that the people know that the policies of the major parties are wrong and against the interests of ordinary people. He speaks of an underground river, individuals and small gatherings who are ordinary people who keep common sense ideas alive and who will, one day, triumph.

Such a position requires a heroic stance in the face of overwhelming logical objections. If “the people” know what is right for the country, one may ask, why have they not asserted pressure on their politicians to do what is right? This is a particularly valid question in a country which proudly regards itself as the world’s foundational democracy.

The second objection is more formidable. If bad unrepresentative policies are maintained as a result of a maldistribution of power, why should anyone believe that those who grasp the power and promulgate the bad policies would relinquish their grip?

Yet, many will prefer Greider’s heroic optimism, despite its logical difficulties, to alternative available world views. Few would feel comfortable with the idea that the US is a functioning democracy producing good policies that are strongly supported by the vast majority of its population. Of those that acknowledge a malaise with the US polity, very few would believe that that malaise can be ignored for ever as being of no moment.

And Greider can and does point to moments in history where popular participation in politics forced political parties and governments to respond to the demands of the people. Australians tend to be most familiar with the anti-war movement that forced the US to withdraw its troops from Indochina. Greider points to other moments in US political history including the social advances of the New Deal policies of the thirties. In terms of the way to run an economy, Greider points to the way the US devoted its whole industrial machine to serve government objectives during the Second World War. He points to the successes of a directed economy where consumption of luxury goods was limited and recurrent budget deficits were chalked up without a blink of an eyelid, policies that would be anathema to the hard money economists whose doctrines, today, so influence modern US policy makers.  

In developing his thesis, Greider explains with both clarity and charm a set of policy alternatives to those that form the largely bi-partisan consensus by which government is run in the United States. The Greider policies are not necessarily novel and he draws upon the work of a number of thinkers who have previously challenged consensus prescriptions. Greider does, however, manage to give a down home quality to his discussion drawing on his long experience as a journalist and as a writer of previous critiques of the way in which government in America works. And, in many areas, Greider’s policy prescriptions have logic on their side, a logic that mainstream politicians are afraid to acknowledge.

Greider critiques the impact of free trade policies on the US economy and society. Protectionism is political death for almost any politician (Bob Katter, the member for Kennedy is a notable exception) and one might imagine that it would be a difficult topic with which to commence a critique of US policy making. Greider, however, brings some extra angles to the discussion which demand consideration. He contrasts US political attitudes to those of almost every other country which has embraced the free trade revolution. The US has been resistant to a government provided social security net. The US has idolised the corporation and exhorted corporations to respect nothing but the bottom line. In contrast, Japan has a strong social culture where corporations and businesses owe duties to their employees and the society as a whole. Countries like China take a strong leadership role and allow corporations to access their comparatively cheap labour and tax breaks on the strict condition that those corporations promise to create factories; to provide new skills; and to enhance the whole country’s technical sophistication. European countries have a strong social security network and a culture of strong unions who will not allow the social supports to be dismantled. And many European corporations have expanded, with their government’s blessing, their overseas operations while maintaining the level of domestic jobs and production.

When it comes to the way in which a preference for free trade has impacted on the US, Greider has, on his side, the logic of large rust belt regions with high unemployment (as a result of jobs being taken off shore) and he can point to the increasingly unfavourable trade balance that the US has with China and the Middle East (since Americans continue to consume the goods they no longer manufacture). Greider has turned the debate from protectionism or free trade to a debate about the way in which the US allows its businesses to act against the national interest in making their profits wherever they can find cheaper labour. He also focuses on the increasing US indebtedness to countries that provide some of its biggest security concerns.

I suspect that much of what Greider has said about US attitudes to business would be applicable to the policies of Australia’s main stream politicians. Australian politicians have, however, found the cover of the quarry economy in whose favours they can bask for some time. Whether and when either a belated recognition of the dangers of global warming or the development by China of alternative supplies of raw materials at home or in Africa will strip Australia of its rose coloured glasses is a question yet to be answered.2

Greider also critiques US defence policy. The picture he paints is of a huge machine that is continually demanding more resources to fight more and more wars. He describes the presence of an almost countless number of US bases located in every corner of the world. This willingness to be everywhere and to attempt to influence events in all those places is, says Greider, itself destabilising and it will ensure that the US will be drawn into more and more wars none of which it will be able to win. It is part of Greider’s charm that he draws on his own experience, as a young man, of basic training in the US army. He has great affection for the defence forces as an institution. He points out the effect of the military in breaking down the inequality of opportunity that otherwise exists in America as he describes meeting young people from poor neighbourhoods who have acquired skills and a career in the military that the US was not otherwise prepared to offer.

It is the critique of US defence policy where the title Come Home, America most echoes a strong traditional strain of American thought.

Come Home, America was published in 2009. The writing picks up much of Obama’s primary campaign but little if any of his presidency. The ongoing pain of Afghanistan (although David Petraeus maintains an optimistic tone that reflects military commentators down the years) and the deterioration of a Somalian situation, at least partially created by US policy, will have enhanced the attractiveness of Greider’s arguments on defence policy.

However, they are not likely to be heeded any time soon. In mid July 2010, the Washington Post published an investigative article on the state of the institutions created as part of the war on terror. Dana Priest and William M. Arkin commenced their report with the conclusion:

“The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.”

That description of anti-terrorism institutions, by no means, covers the defence forces as a whole.

Come Home, America talks about the inadequacy of GDP growth as a measure of well-being for Americans. Greider stresses the marked increase in inequality in the US since the 1970s. He also criticises the reliance on indefinite growth of the economy as a means to economic success in the context of a finite environment. He stresses climate change as but one indicator that those resources are reaching their limits. He discusses the need to increase equality and to develop a healthy, steady state economy as ways of increasing well-being into the future.

Come Home, America is a fertile source of policy alternatives to those trumpeted and pursued by main stream politics in the United States and in Australia.

Greider makes an interesting and unexpected point about the way in which the dominant political consensus draws in groups who might normally be expected to express dissenting views. He refers to the union and conservation movements in the US. He argues that these groups, who might be expected to be less constrained to toe the line than political parties, are, themselves, dependent on major party support to obtain key objectives. Therefore, rather than calling out the broader deficiencies of the policies pursued by the major parties, such NGOs will sign up for much of that consensus and dissent only in ways that do not call that consensus into question.

Greider’s insight reflects what I have long thought about the way in which the conservation movement has campaigned on climate change in Australia and elsewhere. My perception is that any transition to a post carbon society will be long and hard and will not involve very many “low hanging fruit”. The energy intensity of much industrial production has diminished over the years even as the pursuit of more intense consumerism has led to increased emissions of greenhouse gases. Despite this, those who have campaigned most strongly for effective action to combat climate change, whether NGOs or politicians, have avoided any message that the change will be long and hard and confronting. This is, I think, because such campaigners see themselves as part of the political process aimed at achieving influence at the next election and not part of a more difficult and long term reversal of values which is necessary to achieve a sustainable future.

The optimism that infuses Come Home, America of a people’s movement that will bring to the fore policies that benefit and matter to ordinary Americans has had a strange sequel. Since the election of President Obama in November 2008, a people’s movement called the Tea Party Movement has indeed arisen. The Tea Party is not, however, a people’s movement that would please William Greider. It is against corporate taxes; against regulation of industry including environmental regulation and opposes any effective action to prevent climate change. Moreover, as Jane Mayer3 documented in an article in the New Yorker, the Tea Party is not a grass roots movement as commonly understood but has the attributes of an astro-turfing movement being largely the result of years of secret funding and organisation of extreme conservative movements by super oil rich brothers, Charles and David Koch. The conservative backlash, of which the Tea Party movement is a large component, threatens to drown out any expression of progressive thought in America for years to come.

Thankfully, the optimism expressed in Come Home, America is optimism for the long term.

Stephen Keim

Coolangatta

4 September 2010

Footnotes

1. The web site of Rodale Inc describes it as the largest independent publisher in the United States. Its focus is on health, wellness and the environment. Rodale publishes magazines such as Men’s Health and Women’s Health and also published Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
2. John Garnaut’s SMH article suggests that such shocks may not be that far away: http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/power-cuts-to-mills-to-hit-iron-ore-demand-20100908-151d8.html.
3. A review of Ms. Mayer’s The Dark Side may be found here.