Steve Hildebrand has written a short but fascinating article in The Huffington Post chiding the “left wing” of the Democratic party for criticizing Obama’s cabinet choices.
Hildebrand writes:
This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren’t progressive enough. Having worked with former Senator Obama for the last two years, I can tell you, that isn’t the way he thinks and it’s not likely the way he will lead. The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn’t, suggest that our president surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges. After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people – not just those on the left.
As a liberal member of our Party, I hope and expect our new president to address those issues that will benefit the vast majority of Americans first and foremost. That’s his job. Over time, there will be many, many issues that come before him. But first let’s get our economy moving, bring our troops home safely, fix health care, end climate change and restore our place in the world. What a great president Barack Obama will be if he can work with Congress and the American people to make great strides in these very difficult times.
What I find most fascinating about this post is its tacit mischaracterization of the intentions of the “left.” Hildebrand implies, though he doesn’t outright come and state, that the left is demanding either (i) the elimination of non-left viewpoints form Obama’s cabinet or (ii) an overall leftward tilt of said cabinet.
In fact, the progressive critique of Obama’s cabinet has been build precisely on pragmatic grounds, here and elsewhere. When Obama appoints highly ideological key architects of our financial crisis — like Lawrence “Credit Default Swap” Summers — to key posts of his economic team, he is very precisely making an unpragmatic choice.
What the left would like, I suspect, is some recognition that it has been uniformly pragmatically correct on a number of important issues — from the Iraq war through the dangers of financial deregulation. This recognition need not come in the form, as Hildebrand suggests, of a majority stake in an Obama administration. No, rather what progressives demand (or maybe I should say “request”: we lefties are so polite) is some stake, some voice. What we have seen emerging instead amounts to a sort of Clinton restoration, a return to the neoliberal nineties. Which may seem like a less bad thing than the last eight years — the nightmarish naughts — but is still pretty bad when you consider what Clinton-era liberals were wrong about: supporting the Iraq war (when it came), systematically embracing economic deregulation, stalling the Kyoto protocol (and other meaningful climate change initiatives), pushing hard for NAFTA before even health care reform, and so on. These were heartfelt positions (especially NAFTA, whose pragmatic effects were highly destructive), not artifacts of political necessity or tragic triangulations born of a triumphant Republican party. The Clintonites genuinely believed in these disastrous (and ultimately highly unpragmatic) policies.
I am fascinated by the need (a kind of reflexive urge) respectable Democrats feel to chastise us extremist divisive conclusion-drawing Americans who care about meaningfully curbing greenhouse emissions, who thought invading Iraq was wrong from the very beginning, who think that laissez-faire economics (especially in finance) can be hideously destructive, who believe in full civil rights for gay Americans, who believe that universal health care is vitally important, and so on. No, Obama won, Hildebrand is saying, so we should just be quiet and trust in our new Leader to lead us.
That’s what leaders do: they lead. Us? We follow.
Well, sorry Mr. Hildebrand. This American is watching and is drawing conclusions. And not out of some ideological mania, but from a vantage point of pure pragmatism. When President-elect Obama selects cabinet members whose ideological commitments (and track records of failure) may hinder his ability to “get our economy moving, bring our troops home safely, fix health care, end climate change and restore our place in the world,” I think it’s my place to say so and to persuade you that it’s so. Doing this seems like the absolute minimal condition for political rationality and honesty.
I see no reason to keep my real opinions, based on the best evidence I can marshall, out of the realm of public discourse. Mr. Hildebrand certainly offers none backed by any evidence.
You write, “What I find most fascinating about this post is its tacit mischaracterization of the intentions of the “left.” Hildebrand implies, though he doesn’t outright come and state, that the left is demanding either (i) the elimination of non-left viewpoints form Obama’s cabinet or (ii) an overall leftward tilt of said cabinet.”
Here is what Hildebrand actually wrote: “Some believe the appointments generally aren’t progressive enough.”
Hildebrand isn’t mischaracterizing anything. He’s characterizing the views of “some people” — including yourself — who believe the appointments aren’t generally progressive enough.
You write, “No, rather what progressives demand (or maybe I should say “request”: we lefties are so polite) is some stake, some voice. What we have seen emerging instead amounts to a sort of Clinton restoration, a return to the neoliberal nineties.”
In other words, you believe the appointments aren’t generally progressive enough. You wish there were more progressives in the Cabinet. You wish the Cabinet had more progressive voices.
You also write, “I am fascinated by the need (a kind of reflexive urge) respectable Democrats feel to chastise us extremist divisive conclusion-drawing Americans who care about meaningfully curbing greenhouse emissions, who thought invading Iraq was wrong from the very beginning, who think that laissez-faire economics (especially in finance) can be hideously destructive, who believe in full civil rights for gay Americans, who believe that universal health care is vitally important, and so on. No, Obama won, Hildebrand is saying, so we should just be quiet and trust in our new Leader to lead us.”
I want to be clear: I care about meaningfully curbing greenhouse gas emissions. I thought invading Iraq was wrong from the beginning. I think laizzez-faire economics in finance can be hideously destructive. I believe in full civil rights for gay Americans. I believe universal health care is vitally important.
But I do NOT feel that Obama’s Cabinet isn’t progressive enough.
I’m not convinced that it makes sense to blame Summers or anyone else on Obama’s economic team for the financial crisis we’re facing right now. I DO believe that Obama is making the choices he is making so he can actually get something done when it comes to the list of priorities you outlined above.
What, specifically, are you concerned about as you raise these objections? Is it just ideological warfare — you want to see people on the far left in an Obama cabinet because that means you’ve won something in the great game of Washington politics — or do you have a more specific agenda? Because I want to hear more about that agenda.
Comment by Ian — December 8, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
Also, you write, “What the left would like, I suspect, is some recognition that it has been uniformly pragmatically correct on a number of important issues — from the Iraq war through the dangers of financial deregulation.”
Why are you seeking “recognition”? What is the value of that?
For weeks, I’ve heard people describe Obama as a “pragmatist,” “not an ideologue,” I’ve heard people say his economic team “inspires confidence,” and he is set to “hit the ground running.” Obama’s popularity is very high right now, and more than a month after the election, people (in general) haven’t lost their hope that Obama is the best this country could hope for in a situation like this.
If you care about scoring points in an ideological tug-of-war like this — and if you’re myopic about it — then you may tend to view all this with a sense of disappointment. If Obama is in the “center,” and everybody likes him, then it must be because Obama isn’t really pushing this country to the left.
But in my opinion, Obama is forging a new center in American politics — a center that’s considerably farther to the left than the “center” when Bush won reelection in 2004 and the Republicans controlled Congress. This is real change, worth celebrating — and worth fighting to maintain.
It’s easy to criticize Obama when he takes a position that isn’t progressive enough — but do we rally around him when he takes a position that is progressive? Obama clearly wants a bailout of some kind for the big American auto companies — ideologically, Obama has taken a left-wing position on this issue.
So if people on the left want to flex our muscles and change this country, we should support what Obama is trying to do for the 3 million workers who may lose their jobs if the auto industry goes under — rather than only complaining about Obama’s drift to the center.
Comment by Ian — December 8, 2008 @ 7:04 pm
I think there is a lot of good that Obama is going to do in office; I wouldn’t have voted for him otherwise. But I think criticizing his cabinet choices makes perfect sense. His so-called centrism is no surprise to anyone who was paying attention to his real policy positions, but that’s totally fine. Criticism is specifically important because I think my views on the issues are correct and his “centrism” can be bad for America. How?
When I write about “recognition,” what I am perhaps revealing is my — perhaps academically cultivated — sense of meritocracy.
When members of a certain political group are correct, again and again, their reputation should be bolstered and grow; they should be given positions of responsibility and power.
When others prove themselves to be incorrect again and again, their reputations should be tarnished and stained; they should not be rewarded for failure, but marginalized and approached warily.
When Lawrence Summers’ ideas of good economic policy result in the demolition of the economies of multiple countries — including finally the US’s — he should be mistrusted.
When Hillary Clinton supports the invasion of Iraq and, after disingenuously denying that she supported this invasion, subsequently threatens to “obliterate” Iran during a presidential election, making her the US’s chief diplomat might be deemed unwise.
When John Brennan makes many supportive statements of the CIA’s torture regime and “enhanced interrogation tactics,” his name shouldn’t even be floated as head of the CIA.
In the case of Brennan, push-back from the so-called left (including arch-leftist Andrew Sullivan) has resulted in a change. To me, that’s a model of change we can believe in. That’s what scoring points would mean to me — not satisfying my ego; I don’t care what people think of me personally — but ensuring that consistent failure and ideological extremism doesn’t get you a promotion into the highest reaches of our government.
Comment by Lee — December 9, 2008 @ 2:29 am
Note: Not once in the previous comment has the word “progressive” come up as an ideological category. I’m 100% results oriented. I trust people who are consistently right. I mistrust people who are consistently wrong and only admit they’re wrong when cornered by events. That doesn’t mean people who were once right can’t be wrong in the future or that people who were once wrong can’t subsequently correct their errors, but I need pretty clear evidence before I accept that. It helps to build trust if those who were once wrong are upfront about their previous wrongness.
Comment by Lee — December 9, 2008 @ 2:37 am
Glenn Greenwald has this to say about the importance of cabinet appointments. Here’s part worth quoting:
Comment by Lee — December 9, 2008 @ 2:58 am
I think the main obstacle I face as I try to understand your opinion is that I don’t understand the reasons for your strong objections to people like Summers. So when you object to him for not being “progressive” enough, I can’t figure out what the stakes are. That was the point of my question about recognition — I’m sure your concern about Obama’s choices are based on concerns about the results these folks would generate, but I don’t understand specifically.
For example, you write “When Lawrence Summers’ ideas of good economic policy result in the demolition of the economies of multiple countries — including finally the US’s — he should be mistrusted.”
Can you tell me which countries’ economies were demolished by Lawrence Summers? And why Summers was responsible? And how this relates to Summers’ new job? (I’d like to avoid the demolition of our economy if it can be avoided.)
Comment by Ian — December 9, 2008 @ 11:12 am
By the way, I agree with you about Brennan — it’s an example of how valuable it can be when the left pushes Obama on an important issue. I just think it’s counterproductive when the left pushes Obama over issues that aren’t that important.
Comment by Ian — December 9, 2008 @ 11:14 am
My broader point has to do with the total appropriateness of objecting to those cabinet appointments. It sounds like we agree on that point. I object also to the the tone of Hildebrand’s article, which comes across as: stop complaining self-described liberals; you’re being mindlessly ideological while President-elect Obama is being purely pragmatic and results-oriented. My point was that those complaining about Obama’s cabinet appointments are actually being results-oriented and pragmatic, above all. Of course results only matter relative to goals, and goals are decided on based on values and yes ideology… but that’s a separate point.
Summers is a case in point. To repeat points made in my previous post on him:
* the World Bank, under Summer’s leadership, was famously an advocate of “structural adjustment” policies across the world, especially in third world countries. These policies aggressively tied assistance conditionally to restructuring of economies toward a more “neoliberal” line. Summers joined a long line of Bank presidents in pushing for these very problematic policies, which were often foisted on countries experiencing various sorts of economic crisis, when they were at their post desparate.
* Summers was involved in the disastrous privatization fiasco that wrecked Russia’s economy after the fall of the Soviet Union. For a full account of the controversy, you can read a relevant article from Institutional Investor Magazine here.
* In 1990, Lithuania turned to Summers to advise them on how to organize their economy. Two years later, the Lithuanian suicide rate had doubled; within five years of independence form the Soviet Union, 35% of the population was unemployed. I’m looking for a single good article that fully outlines Summers’ involvement in Lithuania; when I find it I’ll post the link there.
* In the US, of course, Summers is well known to have pushed for all sorts of financial “modernization” and deregulation initiatives–most relevant to the current crisis, the Gramm bill, which Bill Clinton signed. There was plenty of warning before hand that these were ill-advised policies. I’ll try to post relevant articles in this space as I recover them.
One might find excused why in all of these cases none of the disasters that befell these countries were Summers’ fault — or not solely Summers’ fault — that there were extraneous circumstances, etc., but this record doesn’t inspire confidence in me. This is only an example, of course. Those who support Summers ask us to take it on faith that he’s “smart.”
Comment by Lee — December 9, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, writes:
Comment by Lee — December 10, 2008 @ 3:02 am
I don’t mean to criticize, but I sincerely wish you would stop using the word “neoliberal” in your posts. I realize it’s shorthand for something complicated, but I don’t exactly know what it means, and I don’t think you can expect everyone who reads this blog to understand what it means. Can you make the same point without using that word, so that it’s clear what you’re talking about?
Anyway, I have a follow-up question to your posts above. As you consider the negative aspects of Summers’ decision making over the years, is there a tendency he shows toward a particular kind of misguided thinking, and how would this misguided thinking manifest going forward? In other words, what sorts of things should we be looking for as we try to determine whether Summers is screwing things up in America the way he has screwed things up in the past?
Comment by Ian — December 10, 2008 @ 11:18 am
Sorry to keep using the word. When I use it, I try to link the Wikipedia article that defines it, but I didn’t in this case. I’ll definitely use summaries in the future.
Your question goes right to the heart of the type of thinking someone like Summers will bring to his position as an economic adviser.
Summers’ philosophy or ideology goes like this: Deregulated the economy; privatize as much of government as possible; implement trade liberalization (eliminating tariffs and allowing foreign direct investment); slash government spending; implementing “austerity” instead of deficit spending (in order to keep inflation down); and so on.
Now, lots of people will support these initiatives and say “they all sound great,” and maybe it does sound great if you feel a reflexive distaste in your mouth every time you hear the word “regulation” or if the menace of inflation threatens to reduce the value of your property. My reading has suggested that this set of policies is actually very terrible in practice for the majority. The best case for an alternative set of policies is laid out by Ha-Joon Chang in his book Bad Samaritans.
But to give one a sense of how bad these policy prescriptions are, imagine if the U.S. had to accept them: minimizing environmental and financial regulation; dismantling Medicare and Medicaid and utilities (let the market do its magic); stop subsidizing food production (see how millions of Americans who are barely making ends meat suddenly like paying more for basic foods); no stimulus package during a recession because we need to “live within our means.”
Under the tutelage of people like Summers, the U.S. did poke around around the edges of such reforms. Energy privatization led to a spike in energy prices, for example, in California. Financial deregulation led to the creation of high-risk derivatives which created risk across the whole economy. Nixon briefly attempted to eliminate agricultural supports, but prices rose the backlash was so strong as food prices went up that he created the modern subsidy system (which has plenty of problems, don’t get me wrong).
Now, as I said way back in my original post, Summers, like most economists of this orientation, are thankfully hypocrites when it comes to applying their own medicine to the US. When it’s their country at risk, they drop these principles in a heartbeat for more rational policies.
It’s sort of like Tom Friedman who extols how wonderful the free market is — for other people — then turns around and says we need to spend huge amounts of tax dollars to build high-tech green industry.
I’m glad they have come around to a better position, but I am not interested in rewarding their previous wrongness by giving them the keys to the kingdom.
Comment by Lee — December 10, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
I’m grateful to you for fleshing out your concerns about Summers, but also confused.
Has Summers supported minimizing environmental regulation? Has he supported dismantling Medicare and Medicaid? Has he supported dismantling utilities? Has he supported eliminating food subsidies?
Summers obviously supports a stimulus package now — is there evidence to believe that in the past, Summers would have opposed the plan he is now supporting?
And how would you differentiate between Summers’ way of thinking and the way of thinking among conservative economists? Are there any ways in which Summers is “to the left” of the economic advisors who have worked for Bush or McCain? Or is Summers the sort of economist who would be considered perfectly acceptable to right-wingers?
Comment by Ian — December 10, 2008 @ 6:42 pm
I’m curious: anyone have any thoughts on this thread, looking back, almost a year on?
Personally, I’m feeling less than fond of the administration’s efforts at bank reform, right now. But, maybe that will yet come, once Health Care resolves.
Comment by aaron — November 12, 2009 @ 2:55 pm