The Clinton Legacy?

With the US primaries race generating so much angst, I would like to explore some of the myths that seem to be underlying perceptions. One concerns some strange notions on left Vs right; liberal Vs conservative; progressive Vs regressive.

A second myth set concerns the enormous, almost superhuman gifts imbued on the holder of the presidency.

The comparative political leanings

Most informed people around the world would recognise US citizens have little real concept of what constitutes the left, even to the extremes of socialism and communism. I have argued for some time that a traditional liberal is not some bleeding heart philanthropist. Liberalism is essentially a self serving notion of the owners of production. Softer than conservatism, liberalism recognises that weary, hungry workers do not perform well. It holds that workers should have sufficient comfort to be able to work efficiently.

I use regressive as the opposing concept to progressive. But rather than simply bandy words we need to look at realities.

The economics

"Reaganomics," were similar to of supply-side economics and advocated free markets. Along with Britain’s Thatcher, Reagan’s administration championed capital against wider society. But neither the Iron Lady nor the Old Ham could have driven these incredibly divisive economic programs on there own, they were only flesh and blood after all.

Both were happily steered by powerful commercial interests, aided by powerful treasury officials and organisations like the World Bank and IMF.

Meanwhile here in Australia the leftist Labor Party came to power, the new Prime Minister was Bob Hawk, the former leader of the country’s trade union movement. Local economists had labeled this new economic direction ‘economic rationalism’ and Hawk and his treasurer Paul Keating adopted it with gusto. So much for the left wing concept…

Like the US, Britain and other western economies we saw major corporations taking jobs and industries off shore, chasing cheaper labour. Thatcher’s Conservatives were eventually replaced by Britain’s leftist Labour Party, under Tony Blair, the Republicans were eventually replaced by Democrat Clinton. But the supply-side economic approach did not waver.

Many years of regressive policy existed under both notional left and right wing governments. The big corporations continued their dominance as countries were progressively stripped of manufacturing and agricultural industries. In fact it is only now that cracks are starting to show in this long held economic dynamic.

On Clinton

Bill Clinton was right in the middle of this economic paradigm and showed no great desire to wind back to a more progressive stance. Sure he was honey tongued, but we really need to focus on the actions rather than the words.

From my memory any forays into progressive policies were passed to Hilary and invariably were doomed to failure. I’m not suggesting that she might have had some passion for the various measures she was advocating as First Lady. But I would suggest we have not seen the same level of passion for issues since, merely a passion for office.

I am willing to be corrected on fact in any of this, as always. But I will hold to the main point; we cannot simply hide behind labels and shallow perceptions. I suspect the willingness to be duped in this way has led to many of the problems we now face. When we get beyond name calling I find that many I debate on the blogs hold pretty much the same aspirations and beliefs I do. We just get tied up in the perceptions and language.