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dc's right about this. i think the sense of crisis is evident and he's proceeding by pitching his policy toward a center position, even as it's logic runs toward a bit more social-democratic line. my concern is that by pitching his policy initiatives in this way that he'll end up pinned by the dysfunctional logic of neoliberalism more than he should be and will find that he'll have to change course later to effect a harder break with it--which will cost time that i'm not entirely sure we, collectively, have.
it seems to me that the bulk of the "stimulus package" is geard around something like a full employment program. it isn't exactly one, but it's headed in that direction. if he were to just say it--this is a principle objective for the domestically oriented policies--i think it'd have the effect of making the direction clearer, both in terms of marketing, but also (and more importantly) in the building of approaches. this is a wholesale break with neoliberalism--but is a quite traditional social democratic objective.
the advantage would not only be clarity in that direction, but it would also enable a way of explaining how a diversification of economic activity within the united states could dovetail into a reconfiguration of relations to debt--relatively high wages was central to the transformation of banking under fordism, to the generalization of consumer debt as a mechanism for purchasing political solidarity. this didn't just drop from the sky, but rather was a result of the history of the american mode of production and of policy initiatives that originated with the state--for good and ill (taft hartley anyone?)...
the same position would also provide a rationale for addressing the legion dysfunctions in the spaces of capital flows--even as it would not in itself address them (the processes of fashioning new regulatory frames is a process of redirecting capital flows--the entire logic in place is not functional--typically for the blinkered ideological world that is the states, this has not been addressed--instead you have versions of the "bad apple" theory the sole function of which is to posit the systems of capital flows as in themselves rational and dysfunctions a result of particular abberations--but that's wrong, it seems to me.)
at the same time, i see little choice but to pitch toward the center and build coalitions as a way to implement the changes he is advocating--it just appears piecemeal, the same kind of reactive stuff that was characteristic of the bush people, but bigger this way. i don't think it is, but that's the appearance.
clarity of line seems critical. we aren't there yet.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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