The difference between the old new deals, and any new new deals is the new deals of the 1930s were forced through by a widespread strikes and organizing in every crucial sector. FDR didn’t make labor unions legal, the labor movement was seizing control of whole cities and industries, for years, and forced the labor movement into a state of legal legitimacy. But as soon as that happened, the legal labor movement was subordinated to the federal government. Taft-Hartley, which came after concerted demobilization of the labor movement during ww2, was the first formal step toward the death-spiral of mass labor power.
No social democrat has ever, or will ever, be able to conceive or gestate a new deal, all they can do is use institutional legitimacy to deliver it, and steal all the credit in the process. (The primary contradiction of capitalism according to Marx is “socialized production, individualized surplus”, another overlap between economic and political production.) I know that you know this, but it just can’t be said enough.
That’s exactly right, the New Deal was the concession to organized and militant labor movement that saved capitalism. No such movement exists today, and therefore there is no organized threat for the current ruling class to worry about. I think it’s also worth noting that the rich absolutely know they’re fighting a class war here. The plutonomy memo from citi group basically lays it all out. It’s kind of ironic that these people have far better understanding of Marxism than most of the western left.
The difference between the old new deals, and any new new deals is the new deals of the 1930s were forced through by a widespread strikes and organizing in every crucial sector. FDR didn’t make labor unions legal, the labor movement was seizing control of whole cities and industries, for years, and forced the labor movement into a state of legal legitimacy. But as soon as that happened, the legal labor movement was subordinated to the federal government. Taft-Hartley, which came after concerted demobilization of the labor movement during ww2, was the first formal step toward the death-spiral of mass labor power.
No social democrat has ever, or will ever, be able to conceive or gestate a new deal, all they can do is use institutional legitimacy to deliver it, and steal all the credit in the process. (The primary contradiction of capitalism according to Marx is “socialized production, individualized surplus”, another overlap between economic and political production.) I know that you know this, but it just can’t be said enough.
That’s exactly right, the New Deal was the concession to organized and militant labor movement that saved capitalism. No such movement exists today, and therefore there is no organized threat for the current ruling class to worry about. I think it’s also worth noting that the rich absolutely know they’re fighting a class war here. The plutonomy memo from citi group basically lays it all out. It’s kind of ironic that these people have far better understanding of Marxism than most of the western left.