Is the Safety Net Just Masking Tape?
By THOMAS B. EDSALL
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/opinion/edsall-is-the-safety-net-just-masking-tape.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0&pagewa
It’s easy for liberals to explain away setbacks to programs and policies that they favor — ranging from infrastructure investment to food stamps to increased education budgets — as the result of the intransigence of the Republican Party, with its die-hard commitment to slashing government spending on nearly every front.
But that explanation is too facile.
A mix of economic, social and political forces have weakened the clout of those in the bottom half of the income distribution. The list of forces is long, but its signal features are the decline in manufacturing jobs, the strengthening of the bargaining power of corporations, the gutting of middle income employment and competitive pressures to limit wage growth.
How did the Democrats let these developments gain momentum? It depends on how you see the world. Some progressives argue that the Democratic Party stood by and let it happen passively; others suggest that key segments on the left simply sold out to #Wall_Street.
The same forces that have pushed the country to the right are attempting to define those on the bottom rungs – the infamous 47 percent — as mired in “dependency,” “an army of moochers and slackers.”
In the conservative worldview, social insurance programs undermine initiative and self-reliance and encourage those out of work or struggling to make ends meet to turn to the state for support.
In fact, structural economic obstacles to upward mobility for the bottom half are as important as personal behavioral decisions like dropping out of high school or not getting married when you have children. Such decisions often originate in or are reinforced by a lack of economic opportunity. Behavioral norms and structural economic issues are clearly intertwined, but in my view, structural issues have pride of place.
The economics of survival have forced millions of men, women and children to rely on “pity-charity liberal capitalism.” The state has become the resource of last resort consigning just the people progressives would like to turn into a powerful force for reform to a condition of subjugation — living out their lives on government subsidies like Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and now, Obamacare.
In many respects, the safety net has worked to hold society together, and it has the backing, explicit or implicit, of Democratic elites. This system also has the support of much of corporate America, especially of major low-wage employers like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart. These companies are themselves subject to brutal market competition and use government programs that benefit their employees as a means of sustaining inadequate wages and fringe benefits.
The call of Konczal and his colleagues on the progressive left for an empowerment agenda — for structural economic reform — faces roadblocks far higher than many people realize. The loss of a political movement (economic liberalism) and its political vehicle (a stable progressive coalition) has put the left into a position of retreat, struggling to protect besieged programs that are designed explicitly for the poor and which therefore lack strong public backing.
The shift of the Democratic Party from economic to “#pity-charity” #liberalism has put the entire liberal project in danger. It has increased its vulnerability to conservative challenge and left it without a base of politically mobilized supporters. Progressives are now dependent on the fragile possibility that inequality and socioeconomic immobility will push the social order to the breaking point and force the political system to respond.
▻http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/12/18/opinion/18edsall-chart3.html?ref=opinion
