Thomas Frank: What's the Matter with Liberals?

[Beet]

Thomas Frank is a greater writer.

The only problem is that the liberals didn't "sacrifice the liberal economic policies that used to connect them to such voters on the altar of centrism". The problem was their economic policies just kept getting more and more liberal, and then-- pop! Between 1966 and 1982, the Dow Jones Industrials Average lost 80% of its value, once you adjust for inflation. That's almost a great a fall as 1929-1932. The rise of the neoclassicists, the monetarists, the the supply-siders, in the 1970s were all brought about by episode after episode of economic collapse, stagflation, and unemployment. Again and again the liberals tried their policies-- big government, price controls, regulation-- only to be beaten down by the most revolutionary transformation of the developed economy since the end of World War II. By the mid-1980s 'structural re-adjustment' applied not only to the U.S. but to virtually every country around the globe, including the communist bloc. When Walter Mondale defeated economic centrist candidate Gary Hart in the 1984 primaries with the line "Where's the Beef?" he went on to lose in one of the most humiliating landslides ever. By 1992, with the fall of the Soviet Union and Reagan's economic policies, the DJIA had gained over 300% to record highs.

It was in this historic context, not a vacuum, that liberals "sacrified" the go-go economic policies of "the affluent society" that had characterized the 50s and 60s. So while it is easy for Frank to point fingers, he should remember what it is that got us here in the first place.

[Beet]

The only problem is that the liberals didn't "sacrifice the liberal economic policies that used to connect them to such voters on the altar of centrism". The problem was their economic policies just kept getting more and more liberal, and then-- pop! Between 1966 and 1982, the Dow Jones Industrials Average lost 80% of its value, once you adjust for inflation.

Mostly due to oil prices.

I often wonder what would have happened had not Nasser closed the port of Aqaba and made belligerent threats towards the vulnerable Israel in the spring of 1967. The Six Day War would not have happened, so Islamic fundamentalism would not have arisen from the subsequent discredition of pan-Arab nationalism. Thus there would have been no Yom Kippur War of 1973 to avenge the Six Day War. Thus there would have been no first oil shock in response to American resupply of Israel during the Yom Kippur war. Thus the Iranian regime would not have mismanaged any newly acquired oil wealth. Thus there would have been no the second oil shock resulting from the Iranian revolution resulting from the government's mismanagement of oil wealth expectations. Thus there would have been no high interest rate austerity policies of the early 1980s in order to control inflation arising from high oil prices. Thus there would have been no Latin America's lost decade and a 20-year slowdown in world economic growth resulting from the interest rate hike. Thus the beginning of that slowdown would not have led to the rise of the neoclassicists and the "washington consensus" to muck our way out of the misery. Thus there would have been no 25 years of reduced productivity growth in the OECD as the global economy "restructured". Thus there would have been no age of globalization and inequality we have today as a result of that restructuring. God does find a way of making what goes on in the Holy Land relevant, doesn't he?

Ok, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I was just joking in the above paragraph. Blaming all of that on the Six Day War is like blaming a wrong turn by Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand's chauffeur for Hitler-- it probably would have happened eventually anyways.

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Didn't "plummet" but rose more slowly than the upper classes.

[Beet]

Unfortunately for the "working class" is the sad fact that one of the biggest preservers of the wealth disparity in this country is that the upper classes have successfully divided the "working" classes based on race. As long as people put racial prejudice ahead of their economic interests, they won't progress, but they seem perfectly happy with that.

[Beet]

Re: the failings of American educational systems:

In my school, it was possible to get a good education...if you took the 'honors' or 'enriched' level classes, that is. (If you took the 'regular' level classes...eh.)

Know what the local liberals are doing here? They're eliminating all of the honors and enriched classes and forcing everyone into regular classes. They claim it's so that the rest of the students can benefit from the same level of education, or that all students will have the same level of education, or some dippy left-wing theory of the local lefty College of Education. What they will actually do, of course, is drag down everyone's level of education and make it so everyone is mediocre together.

You think it's bad now...

Those aren't liberals. You can stop your liberal bashing now.

Then who are they? It is the left-leaning members of the local school board who support this, and the local school unions who back this and the local College of Education are both very left-wing.

In your defense, the only member who comes out and says that this is idiotic is a moderate Democrat...

Well, I strongly support tracking, because I'm a meritocracy liberal.

Ah, got it. Well, not your type of liberal is being referred to then...

My school was very liberal from an extremel liberal area and it was highly divided between honors/advanced versus regular classes. The main complaint was not so much that there was a differentiation there, but that the differentiation was not nearly what it could have been. For example, the main difference in quality of the courses was not their content, but the character of one's peers. This also suggests that the proposals of who you call the liberals at your school would be intrinsically impossible, and that the problem comes at a more basic level.

[Beet]

Re: the failings of American educational systems:

In my school, it was possible to get a good education...if you took the 'honors' or 'enriched' level classes, that is. (If you took the 'regular' level classes...eh.)

Know what the local liberals are doing here? They're eliminating all of the honors and enriched classes and forcing everyone into regular classes. They claim it's so that the rest of the students can benefit from the same level of education, or that all students will have the same level of education, or some dippy left-wing theory of the local lefty College of Education. What they will actually do, of course, is drag down everyone's level of education and make it so everyone is mediocre together.

You think it's bad now...

Those aren't liberals. You can stop your liberal bashing now.

Then who are they? It is the left-leaning members of the local school board who support this, and the local school unions who back this and the local College of Education are both very left-wing.

In your defense, the only member who comes out and says that this is idiotic is a moderate Democrat...

Well, I strongly support tracking, because I'm a meritocracy liberal.

Ah, got it. Well, not your type of liberal is being referred to then...

My school was very liberal from an extremel liberal area and it was highly divided between honors/advanced versus regular classes. The main complaint was not so much that there was a differentiation there, but that the differentiation was not nearly what it could have been. For example, the main difference in quality of the courses was not their content, but the character of one's peers. This also suggests that the proposals of who you call the liberals at your school would be intrinsically impossible, and that the problem comes at a more basic level.

I'll take 'Basic Idiocy' for $100.

Interesting. When I was in high school, there definitely was a difference in the content of the courses - I learned a good deal about how to write by taking the Honors English classes...and to blow my own horn, it got me a 5 on the English Advanced Placement Test. The 5's I got on the American History and European History AP Tests were helped somewhat but not as much by my classes. Ah, I enjoyed getting 6 free classes' worth of college credit out of that. Anyway, the quality of the classes was different, and it mattered.

That is interesting, I got a 5 on the AP Euro test from taking the class, but decided during registration to take the AP American history test and got a 5 on that as well. The AP classes are a little different because the teachers usually will try to tailor the course specifically around the test. But it's not necessary to take the course to take the test.

Basically, even with AP, I think the standards at public education are waaay too low. Yes there are people who behave like basic idiots but I believe most of that *is* due to the system they've been through, as well as general social expectations and mores. The question is, are people happier with low standards? Would raising standards "deprive" students of their childhood? No. J.S. Mill is an example of a deprived childhood. He was doing dissertation-level work by age 13. What I'm proposing is to cut out some of the fat at the K-9 level. In the long run most students would be grateful because we're not wasting such a huge part of their lives. Its better that they learn more when they are young and still have options than to figure things out later.