The New New Left: How American Politics Works Today: Malanga, Steven: 9781566636445: Amazon.com: Books

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The New New Left: How American Politics Works Today Hardcover – May 5, 2005

by Steven Malanga (Author)

7

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Politics in America today is more than just a contest between left and right, liberal and conservative, argues Steven Malanga in The New New Left. He describes an emerging new political dynamic: the contest between those who benefit from an ever-expanding public sector and those who pay for this bigger government―in other words, between tax consumers and taxpayers. Mr. Malanga traces the rise of the tax consumers' movement to two sources. One is the growth of public-sector employee unions beginning in the 1950s, which produced an increasingly powerful and influential lineup of organizations that are essentially political. The second is the War on Poverty, whose funding of grassroots social service groups in the 1960s created a new type of neighborhood "political club," sustained by and organized around public funding. Unlike the original New Left, which evolved from a naive but genuine effort to create a better society, these new groups, in Malanga's view, pursue an agenda based on their own narrow economic interests. The leading edge of this new movement has engulfed New York City, but it has begun to emerge forcefully in other American cities too, especially in California. In all these locales the New New Left concentrates its political energies toward larger government and higher taxes―to benefit the public sector. And the ideas behind the movement have effectively infiltrated American college campuses. Understanding how American politics works today is incomplete without Mr. Malanga's important book.

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Print length

160 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ivan R. Dee
Publication date

May 5, 2005
Dimensions

5.86 x 0.74 x 8.54 inches
ISBN-10

1566636442
ISBN-13

978-1566636445
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Good but not great

Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2013

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This was a pretty good read. I can't rate it great because it was fairly short (147 pages) and too many of the examples were focused on the New York area. Maybe that was just Malanga's frame of reference. Overall, the book discusses many of the dangers in the drift of the liberal mindset toward the radicalism of the progressive far left. [I happen to feel there is just as much to fear from the progressive right.] One chapter that impressed me was Union U. Here, the author discusses how the unions have completely taken over the curriculums of many of our universities. There is a lot to learn in this chapter alone.

One person found this helpful

Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2014

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I am still reading this book slowly.

Parasites versus Producers

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2006

The New New Left of the 21st century is the heir to the 1960s New Left, demolished so well by Ayn Rand in her book The New Left: The Anti Industrial Revolution. The movement that Malanga investigates is still ideological but far more cynical. In place of the earlier hippies, they are dedicated careerists. Now it is all about wielding power on the local level, especially in the inner cities, in order to benefit themselves. Like all leftists they are parasites and Malanga quite rightly labels them Tax Eaters.

Who are they? Coalitions of politicians, state-funded social service agencies, public employee unions, community activists and interest groups of various stripes. They aim to expand government programmes in order to reap more of the good life from the sweat of the labor of others, and they use the language of social justice and political correctness to further this aim. In the process they invariably do more harm than good to their communities.

Unions are one of the remaining redoubts of the Left and the reason that the Democrats still control many cities. Once that support dissipates with the decline in union membership, the leftist inner city councils like that of New York City will be all that remains. Describing how they have reversed Giuliani's reforms, the author predicts the return of urban decay. The Tax Eaters are driving out the Tax Payers.

The book also deals with the continuing attempt to demonise Wal-Mart. Malanga demonstrates how caring this company really is and its popularity amongst poor people. The non-union chain is a threat to union control over the labor market and it undermines leftist theories of "market failure." Those who oppose it are doing so for their own selfish and ideological ends, whilst denying the poor the chance to find jobs and save money.

For a broader look at this latest manifestation of the Left on the national level, I recommend The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of the Democrats' Desperate Fight to Reclaim Power by Byron York. That book also looks at the eccentric billionaires and Hollywood celebrities and how this crowd have taken over the Democratic Party. Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy by Peter Schweizer exposes these types for the hypocrites that they are. For a juicy history of the shameful record of the Dems, I highly recommend Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party by Lynn Vincent and Robert McCain.

19 people found this helpful

The urban dilemma: triumph of the tax eaters over the taxpayers

Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2019

This thin book (or long essay—the main text is less than 150 pages), argues that urban politics in the United States has largely been captured by an iron triangle of "tax eaters”: unionised public employees, staff of government funded social and health services, and elected officials drawn largely from the first two groups and put into office by their power to raise campaign funds, get out the vote, and direct involvement in campaigns due to raw self-interest: unlike private sector voters, they are hiring their own bosses.

Unlike traditional big-city progressive politics or the New Left of the 1960s, which were ideologically driven and motivated by a genuine desire to improve the lot of the disadvantaged (even if many of their policy prescriptions proved to be counterproductive in practice), this “new new left” puts its own well-being squarely at the top of the agenda: increasing salaries, defeating attempts to privatise government services, expanding taxpayer-funded programs, and forcing unionisation and regulation onto the private sector through schemes such as “living wage” mandates. The author fears that the steady growth in the political muscle of public sector unions may be approaching or have reached a tipping point—where, albeit not yet a numerical majority, through their organised clout they have the power to elect politicians beholden to them, however costly to the productive sector or ultimately disastrous for their cities, whose taxpayers and businesses may choose to vote with their feet for places where they are viewed as valuable members of the community rather than cash cows to be looted.

Chapter 5 dismantles Richard Florida's crackpot “ Creative Class ” theory, which argues that by taxing remaining workers and businesses even more heavily and spending the proceeds on art, culture, “diversity”, bike paths, and all the other stuff believed to attract the golden children of the dot.com bubble, rust belt cities already devastated by urban socialism can be reborn. Post dot.bomb, such notions are more worthy of a belly laugh than thorough refutation, but if it's counter-examples and statistics you seek, they're here.

The last three chapters focus almost entirely on New York City. I suppose this isn't surprising, both because New York is often at the cutting edge in urban trends in the U.S., and also because the author is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor to its City Journal, where most of this material originally appeared.

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