“The Old
is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born,” by Nancy Fraser, 2019
Everyone
loves Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci.
This essay book’s title is based on his quote and the text is based on
his concept of ‘hegemony.’ Fraser
analyzes the present political postures in the U.S. and how left populism could
create a ‘counter-hegemony’ that could overturn the present ‘progressive
neo-liberalism’ or ‘reactionary neo-liberalism’ hegemony practiced by the two
ruling parties.
As a
materialist feminist, Fraser highlights the unification of upper middle-class
‘diversity’ attitudes and a wing of financialized capital, providing the
political ideology of the Democratic Party.
She especially excoriates ‘progressive neo-liberal’ / ‘liberal-meritocratic’
views as a political dead end that keeps the status quo in place. The Republican Party also supports a wing of financialized
capital, but uses conservative Christian ‘family values’ palaver as their vote
getter. As a result, no Party paid attention to the decimation of the U.S. working
class over many years, as jobs were exported, technology replaced workers,
poverty and debt grew and wages stagnated.
Fraser says this neo-liberal approach left crisis openings for both
Trump and Sanders in 2016 to propose two different varieties of populism –
reactionary and progressive populism.
Trump has now
substituted a hyper ethno-nationalist version of racist populism as his ‘bait
and switch,’ blaming the numerous ‘Others’ for every bad thing – but never
capitalists or oligarchs. How could he, as he's a capitalist himself! He appointed a
Goldman Sachs alumnus as his Treasury Secretary and signed huge increases in
the military budget, new corporate trade pacts and trillions in aid to Wall
Street through the various CARES acts, with Democrats on board for all. Sanders voted for the CARES act, which should come as no surprise, so his 'left' populism has become 'less' counter-hegemonic.
Fraser also misses the international / military dimension, which
leads to the issue of imperialism, one she does not address directly in her
analysis of populisms. Left populism normally slights the international dimension, or backs up the prevailing 'hegemonic' view because it is supposedly about 'our' working class only.
Fraser says
in order to have left populism prevail, two splits have to happen. One is that “less privileged women,
immigrants and people of color have to be wooed away from the lean-in
feminists, the meritocratic anti-racists and the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement,
the corporate diversity and green-capitalism shills who hijacked their
concerns…” This quote assumes many
have not already ‘weaned’ themselves from these shills. In effect, she seems to call for proletarian
and left-wing materialist approaches to feminism, anti-racism, gay rights and
environmental issues.
Can the
“populist cat be put back in the bag?”
Fraser says no in a follow-up interview with Jacobin editor
Bhaskar Sunkara that follows the essay. In the end Fraser says the immediate
political crisis is just a front for a generally faltering capitalist system,
not just neo-liberalism alone. She says
‘perhaps’ left populism is only a phase towards an anti-capitalist or even
pro-socialist counter-hegemony – her tippy-toe of transitional stages. She has no suggestions on organization,
transitional demands or program, the absence of which she cites
as why “the new cannot be born.” Like many left academics, she avoids these issues studiously, refusing
to join or promote certain types of organizations or programs.
Other prior
blog reviews on this subject, use terms:
“Fortunes of Feminism” (Fraser); or words: feminism, populism, neo-liberalism or
neoliberalism.
And I
bought it at May Day Books!
Red Frog
May 24, 2020
At the store call
ahead, enter or knock…
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