This book is about the rise and fall of liberalism during the 20th century, and its spurting, Clinton/Obama constrained, reemergence. This is a great book on the history of American politics. It has its bias, but a welcome breath of fresh air from Rachel Maddow and Michael Moore. My review is not necessarily defending (or critiquing) the authors' bias, but attempting to articulate it.
Alterman (with the assistance of historical "raw material" and drafting from Kevin Mattson) is very interested to document and defend the triumphs of liberalism in the last century. He is deeply concerned with how liberalism has lost it way since 1970s. To this Alterman's book is a brilliant success. It is history that will make liberals proud and carry great interest for conservatives, because not only is this book a history of the heroics of liberalism as movement, but its greatest contribution may be documenting the failures of liberalism.
According to Alterman the main feat of 20th century liberalism was not its cultural agenda, but the liberal economics that dominated policy for nearly 50 years in the 20th century (1937 - 1973). Alterman believes that current Democrats have lost touch with the economic basis of liberalism, consequently have a difficult time defending liberalism as a political and economic position.
Liberalism as a successful movement is the populism of Andrew Jackson (see Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s
The Age of Jackson (Back Bay Books (Series))) or `candidate' Barack Obama, committed to the economics of John Maynard Keynes (a very good recent account and defense of Keynesian Economics can be found in Bateman and Backhouse's
Capitalist Revolutionary: John Maynard Keynes, especially chapter 5, see my amazon review) and the progressive inspired institutional economics of John K. Galbraith (see Richard Parker's
John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics, this intellectual, political, and personal biography of Galbraith compliments Alterman's argument, and in many ways out performs Alterman's articulation and defense of liberalism. Parker's biography is a truly outstanding achievement in economics, politics and biography).
Alterman points out that liberals advanced the rights and economics of blacks and Hispanics, they promoted the rights of women and protected economics of our seniors and disabled. They have increased the pay and safety of workers, and created an insurance program for the unemployed. Liberal economic policy built the American middle class during the Golden Age (1937 - 1973) of American capitalism. In short, far from being severe critics of capitalism, liberals and liberalism as a movement have strengthened and defended capitalism (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s
The Crisis of the Old Order: 1919-1933, The Age of Roosevelt, Volume I is a book written as a first hand account of the New Deal that well supports this view, documenting the collapse of the conservative agenda and the conservative/liberal support of liberal/progressive response, see my amazon review of this volume).
According to Alterman the apex of liberalism was the second New Deal (1937; unemployment compensation, social security, minimum wage, National Labor Relations Act, [Arthur Badger offers an historical interpretation that is a bit different, giving proper due to the southern conservative Republican Congressmen and the early Western conservationists who tended to be Republicans, see my amazon review of
FDR: The First Hundred Days (Critical Issue)). Important to the thesis of Alterman is that the rupture of liberalism began quite early. The first significant fracture was in 1947 with the overriding of President Truman's veto and the passage of the labor unfriendly Taft-Hartley act. This bill split liberals, and accusations of "socialist" emerged front and center for those defending a labor and middle class friendly agenda, putting the more economically progressive liberals on the defensive and encouraging many liberals to hid behind an economically conservative front, while championing special interest liberal agendas.
The fundamental fracture of liberalism, according to Alterman, comes with the defense of civil rights (racial minorities, gender, disabled, sexual orientation, etc.) and (the liberal launch) of Vietnam. Liberalism has not fully recovered from the fractures of liberalism occurring from 1947 - 1973. Instead, what has happened is an abandonment of economic liberalism and the protection of workers and the middle class, because liberalism has come to mean cultural liberalism, politics of special interest, difference, and identity politics. Alterman is anxious to emphasis that he does not mean to critique cultural liberalism, but to point out the disconnect from cultural liberalism from its foundation of economic liberalism has fractured liberalism and allowed many working class and middle class Americans to identity with cultural conservatives. Obama has embraced conservative economics and embraced cultural liberalism, epitomizing the splintering of liberalism as a movement and political force.
The intensity of this book is its potent history. Eric Alterman and his collaborator Kevin Mattson both are Ph.D.'s in history (respectively, Stanford University and University of Rochester), their command of American history is impressive and is what makes this book a success, along with providing a considerable political contribution in its own right.
The historical interpretation provided in the book establishes, American Liberalism is well rooted in the Enlightenment and the ideas that founded this country, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the right to pursue one's own happiness, and the institutionalization of a government that protects these rights and freedoms. The foundation of liberalism is than a marriage of Jeffersonian individualism and Hamiltonian federalism (this may be the real foundational tension within liberalism). But these foundation stones were unfortunately only nominal for blacks, immigrants, women, and most workers. Hence, by 1880 a second phase of liberalism emerges that is a concentrated effort to extend these rights and freedoms from landowning white men - to racial minorities, women, disabled and the working class. It would not be until the Great Depression of 1930s and the New Deal of Roosevelt that the progressive ambitions of progressives and institutional economists would come to fruition as legislative and institutional achievements. It would not be until the Fair Deal and Great Society that civil rights would be institutionalized. The third phase of liberalism is its cultural fracturing from the Taft-Hartley act in 1947, to civil rights and Vietnam.
The culmination of these fractures is the creation of the Democratic Leadership Council and the election of the conservative liberal Bill Clinton and his support and passage of "welfare as we know it", expansion of the Milton Friedman inspired Earned Income Tax Credit, dogmatic commitment to a balanced budget, and repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, ushering in of securitization, leveraging and risk-taking activity of American banks. Mr. Obama has stayed committed to economic conservatism, hence has never reclaimed the mantel of liberalism, but rearticulated its fractured partial expression, of identity politics and special interests.
Undoubtedly, this is a political book. However, whether you agree or disagree with its political framework, the book is a very interesting and enjoyable read. As a work in American history this book deserves an audience across the political spectrum. The book's history shows that liberalism has been a far better garrison of capitalism, than is suggested by the political and historical myths which surround it. As such the historical interpretation developed and presented makes this an important book for the future of American politics with urgent economic implications.
