Postscript to Populism vs Technocracy

I spent my last post beating up on a Vox article, so as a postscript let me praise this one, where Ezra Klein interviews Obama's 2008 staffers about the similarities and differences between their campaigns. What particularly stood out to me was his email interview with Obama's speechwriter at the time, Jon Favreau. In 2008, one thing Obama said was, "It's time to let the drug and insurance industries know that while they'll get a seat at the table, they don't get to buy every chair." Favreau explains:

To me, this exemplifies the difference between Bernie and Obama. Bernie would never say something like that. He doesn't think insurance companies, or drug companies, or banks, or millionaires get any seats at the table. He doesn't talk about making progress by working with Republicans, or the political establishment, or the business establishment. I guess his plan is to build a mobilized grassroots that simply wrestles power away from those who have it. 

It's not just that Obama doesn't think that's feasible, it's that he doesn't think that's the right way to govern in a pluralistic democracy where everyone gets a voice. Obama believes that there's too many Americans who don't have a voice, and too many Americans who don't have opportunity, and that a big reason for that is the power of special interests and big corporations. But he also believes that there's a place for those interests and corporations in our system.

Note, again, that combination of criticisms: populism is both infeasible and undesirable. However, Favreau clearly isn't very interested in the feasibility critique. Instead, he explicitly says that Obama (and by extension Favreau) thinks special interests and big corporations should have some power, just not as much as they have right now. And Obama indeed enacted that policy as President; there are numerous examples I could site, but this secret deal he made with the pharmaceutical companies before the healthcare fight is the most blatant one.

This is technocracy in action. Favreau says that Bernie doesn't want special interests or big corporations to "get any seats of the table." That, though, is an exaggeration; it's not like Sanders is proposing to disenfranchise the rich. He doesn't want to deny seats to the big corporations, he just wants them to have the same seats as everyone else. Favreau (and according to him, Obama), on the other hand, want the rich and powerful to remain more powerful than the marginalized--just somewhat less powerful than they currently are. (Again, keep in mind he's arguing this state of affairs is desirable, not inevitable.) It's...interesting...that he claims to be defending "pluralistic democracy" while advocating an explicitly anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian worldview.

While Favreau doesn't justify his position, I think it's fair to say it comes from the technocratic attitude I discussed in my previous post. Consider his characterization of Sanders's proposal: "to build a mobilized grassroots that simply wrestles power away from those who have it." Favreau seems to conceive of populism as a kind of violence: wrestling power away from the powerful. And honestly, he's kind of right. As Klein says later in his article:

In this telling, the core difference between Obama and Sanders is that Obama's theory of political change was that American politics needed to become less ideological and less conflictual, while Sanders's theory of change is that American politics needs to be made more ideological and more conflictual.

This is precisely right. Mass movements are extremely ideological and conflictual. Sometimes they become literally violent, but even when they don't things like protests and boycotts are basically attempts to coerce others into doing what you want them to do. Technocracy by contrast, if only because there are far fewer people involved, is transactional, consensus-based, sometimes even polite. It is also, of course, undemocratic. But for some, that's a cost worth paying, or even perhaps not a cost at all.

I'll try to write something for this Sunday. Not sure what yet. Suggestions are welcome.

Hillary Clinton is not (just) a pragmatist: she's a technocrat

I

David Roberts of Vox recently wrote a post about the Democratic primary, inspired by the recent kerfuffle about whether Clinton is a "progressive." Roberts calls the idea that one cannot be both a moderate and a progressive an "illuminating error" which "helps expose a key source of misunderstanding between the Clinton and Sanders camps." Ironically, in explicating this "error," I think Roberts makes an illuminating error of his own in asserting that the main difference between Clinton and Sanders is the former is a pragmatist ("a progressive who gets things done," perhaps), and the latter isn't. In reality, though, they're both pragmatists, it's just their theories of change are different: Sanders is a populist, while Clinton is a technocrat. Before explaining what I mean by that, though, I want to summarize Roberts's argument.

Roberts argues that there are (at least) two ways one can assess a political candidate: their ideology and their "practicality." Roberts writes:

"Progressive" is an ideological term. It refers to a position on an ideological spectrum, namely to the left. A progressive's opposite is a conservative. 

"Moderate" is a practical term. . . . Broadly speaking, it refers to a candidate who focuses on consensus-building and incremental progress, someone who doesn't believe the US political system is capable of sudden, lurching change, or just doesn't want that kind of change. 

A moderate's opposite is a radical, someone who believes rapid, revolutionary change is both possible and necessary.

(Note how Roberts conflates two senses of "moderate": someone who believes rapid change is impossible, and someone who believes it's undesirable. I'll come back to this later.)

Roberts claims Sanders prefers talking about ideology (what he wants to do), while Clinton prefers talking about practicality (what it's possible to do). As a result of this, arguments between each faction tend to be unproductive. Sanders supporters "reject out of hand" the notion that "Clinton and her supporters might believe equally in the values of the left but differ on strategy." Similarly, Clinton supporters interpret any "expression of ambition" as "a lack of knowledge about How Politics Really Works."

Despite this try at even-handedness, Roberts's sympathy with the Clinton side of this debate is clear. He writes:

But over time, I have grown extremely skeptical, not to say cynical, about the capacity of US political institutions to deliver dramatic change. And I've witnessed the cycle of hyperbolic liberal hopes followed by melodramatic liberal despair too many times.

Roberts admits that the "reality" he's expecting liberals to accept is "creeping oligarchy and militarism," and that "on climate change alone, something like a revolution seems necessary." However, his final point is that even if we need a revolution, the President isn't the person we should look to for one:

The president is constrained by layer after layer of checks and balances, veto points, entrenched interests, and institutional inertia. For a president in polarized times, progress comes not with a bludgeon but with a chisel. 

The reason the left's revolution hasn't arrived isn't just that money has corrupted Washington, though it undoubtedly has. It's that half the country views massive new taxes and government spending programs with horror. . . . Resistance is not futile, but it is painstaking.

While I have some nitpicks with Roberts's argument--Sanders certainly has explained what he means by "political revolution" whether you agree or not, and a majority of the country supports (for example) single-payer health care--my biggest issue is with his starting distinction between ideology and practicality. This is the "illuminating error" I referred to, which I will now discuss in detail.

II

To begin with, recall that Roberts gave two different descriptions of a "moderate": one who believes radical change is impossible, and one who believes it's undesirable. Considering Roberts's overall article, he seems to put himself in the former camp. However, this camp is objectively incorrect. Here are just a few examples of radical change that have occurred throughout American history:

1) In the late 1700s, the entire system of American government (rule from Britain) was overthrown and a new one was drawn up from scratch.

2) In the mid to late 1800s, slavery, the foundation of the American economy, was abolished.

3) In the early 1900s, half of the population was given the right to vote for the first time, permanently affecting American politics to this day. (In 2012, Obama won the female vote 55% to 44%.)

4) In the mid 1900s, the economy was fundamentally transformed again, setting the stage for a massive rise in median family income.

5) In the mid to late 1900s, the system that had been set up to oppress black Americans after slavery, which had lasted for a century, was overthrown along with much of patriarchy.

6) In the late 1900s, a backlash occurred and we swung back to the right, a process that is currently ongoing.

To be fair, these changes were not always pretty; for example, the first two were ultimately accomplished by wars, and the New Deal would not have happened without the Great Depression. Furthermore, the successes were often mixed: after the American Revolution only white male property-owners could vote; racism and sexism continue to be pervasive; the New Deal often explicitly excluded people of color from its benefits. Nevertheless, they are surely far more radical than Sanders's major proposals, all of which already exist in other countries (and some of which, like free college, used to exist in this country). One is forced to wonder where Roberts's cynicism about fundamental change comes from, especially since the last one--the conservative revolution--is so recent.

Perhaps Roberts thinks the country has just fundamentally changed since the 1960s: it's too divided now, the special interests are too strong. However, this notion is ridiculous. Segregation was supported by half the country and centuries of history. Slavery was the backbone of the American economy, backed by some of the richest and most powerful individuals ever to exist. If anything, the enemies of progressivism's past were more powerful than the enemies of progressivism's present.

I suspect the source of Roberts's discomfort resides elsewhere. There is an important commonality between all six instances of radical change I cited: they were all accomplished by massive popular movements. This includes the American Revolution, which was preceded by decades of protest, boycotts, and rioting. (They looted the mansion of the pro-British lieutenant governor of Massachusetts.) Not coincidentally, this is precisely Sanders's strategy for enacting change:

"But if, on that very day, as an example," [Sanders] continued, "a million young people march in on Washington to say exactly what Colleen said a few moments ago, that all of our young people who have the ability deserve to get a college education regardless of the income of their families, suddenly, that gentleman will look out the window and say, 'Well, Mr. President, let's sit down and talk about how we can address this serious problem.'"

This strategy has its flaws. As the above Slate article points out, cheap fossil fuels benefit millions of Americans (not just oil companies), so it may be difficult to build a mass movement against global warming. More fundamentally, one could argue that the very notion of an anti-establishment movement led by the President of the United States is a contradiction in terms, and that to be truly independent and long-lasting we need to organize around issues, not personalities. While I am myself a Sanders supporter, I think both these objections are plausible and on-point. Nevertheless, it seems clear that a mass movement does have the capability of forcing radical change, and so the only way one can argue that only incremental change is possible is if one takes mass politics off the table.

And indeed Roberts, despite his disclaimers in support of activism, doesn't seem at all interested in the question of how to build a durable left-wing mass movement. I wonder, then, if Roberts might fall into the second camp of "moderate": someone who believes radical change is undesirable. Not necessarily because they disagree with radical change as an end goal, but because they disagree with the means necessary to achieve this.

Roberts argues that Sanders and Clinton both share the same goal, they just disagree on how to achieve it. Well, perhaps a Dictator Sanders and a Dictator Clinton wouldn't look very different. But who cares? Neither are running for dictator. In the actual world, it is impossible to draw such a clean line between someone's "ideology" and their "practicality." Sanders and Clinton disagree on tactics, yes, but this disagreement is based on a deeper ideological difference: Sanders believes that change should be achieved by a mass movement, while Clinton believes that change should be achieved by a small group of experts. In short, Sanders is a populist and Clinton is a technocrat. Their ideologies determine which tactics they consider acceptable.

III

My use of the terms "populist" and "technocrat" may be unclear and is probably idiosyncratic. So first I'll explain a bit what I take those terms to mean, and then I'll back up my claim that Clinton is a technocrat.

A technocrat believes that politics is, at bottom, a science. As such, in an ideal state, politics would be handled by trained experts. These experts would, non-ideologically, determine which policies would lead to the most benefit/greatest welfare for the country, and would then enact those policies. This is not to say that technocrats have no use for the public--however, by necessity the public must play a subordinate role. Namely, the purpose of sympathetic popular movements is to advocate for the policies that the experts come up with and to pressure those who oppose those policies (either through ignorance or maliciousness). What they must not do is pressure the experts themselves, because while the experts might not always be right, due to their expertise they are more likely to be right than the uneducated public.

I should note that, while I disagree with it, technocracy is not implausible on its face. After all, in most areas of our life (medicine, law, etc) we consult experts to decide what to do. Why should politics be any different?

I think the best way to describe the opposite view, populism, is that a populist thinks politics is at bottom a struggle. More specifically, it's a struggle between the powerful and the non-powerful, or marginalized. Since the marginalized are typically more numerous than the powerful, a populist's main task is to encourage the marginalized to unite and organize, in order to gain power and defeat the powerful. To a populist, the "non-ideological experts" the technocrat values so much are in fact part of the powerful--they are ultimately enemies, not saviors (though some may occasionally be tactical allies). In the populist's ideal state, the public, and not a small group of experts, would rule.

In my opinion, the best argument in favor of populism and against technocracy is that there's no such thing as a non-ideological expert. Depending on what you value, your theory on what counts as the "general welfare" will differ. So while technocrats claim to merely be non-ideologically--or "pragmatically," if you will--doing "what works," in reality they are imposing their own set of values on the rest of society. This, in my view, is really a form of tyranny. But then, as a Sanders supporter, I suppose I would think that. And technocracy has a long tradition, arguably starting with Plato, so it's not like all technocrats are evil or even ignorant. And to be fair, history shows that mass movements often end up supporting vile policies and politicians, so I can certainly understand the motivation behind technocracy even though I disagree.

Anyway, it's pretty clear that Sanders is a "populist" in my sense: he's explicitly calling for a mass movement to pressure both parties to enact his favored policies. What about Clinton, though?

Well, we can't peer into her soul, and as far as I know she hasn't explicitly endorsed either position. Nevertheless, I think she's almost certainly a technocrat, due in part to: her reliance on big donors, her rejection of radicalism and advocacy of incrementalism, and her alignment with the Democratic establishment. I will argue this next.

IV

Clinton giving speeches to banks for hundreds of thousands of dollars has become an issue recently, compounding the previous issue of her using a SuperPAC, fundraising from large corporations, etc. Her response has been, essentially, that she's never changed a vote due to a campaign contribution. This may be true, but it's essentially beside the point. As Alex Pareene points out in this excellent Gawker article:

Bernie Sanders' critique of Clinton is not that she's cartoonishly corrupt in the Tammany Hall style, capable of being fully bought with a couple well-compensated speeches, but that she's a creature of a fundamentally corrupt system, who comfortably operates within that system and accepts it as legitimate. Clinton has had trouble countering that critique because, well, it's true. It's not that she's been bought, it's that she bought in. [Emphasis added.]

Clinton took offense at the recent debate to being called part of the establishment. But the "establishment" isn't a single entity, it's a catch-all term to describe the powerful entities in a society, and as one of the most powerful people in the country Clinton is certainly a member of the establishment, at least the Democratic one. (Indeed, her pitch as being an "experienced progressive who gets things done" is based on this membership.) The Democratic establishment has decided that to succeed it must work with other powerful entities, like big corporations, rather than fight them. By relying on money from these powerful corporations, Clinton is clearly using the same strategy.

This strategy is a technocratic one, both for what it does and what it does not do. While CEOs and other rich individuals may not seem like "experts," according to modern capitalist mythology anyone who makes it big is intelligent, hard-working, knowledgeable, etc. This is the justification behind hiring rich employees of these firms to important government positions: they are the savvy ones who know what to do. The Platonic philosopher-king has become a CEO.

Even more importantly, though, is what the strategy doesn't do: namely, it's not even trying to rely on left movements. This is where incrementalism (and thus, the original Vox article by Roberts) come into play. Roberts asserts that only incremental change is possible in our modern political system. Clinton herself and many of her supporters agree. But as I've argued, this is only true if one preemptively declares mass politics--that is, populism--untenable. Since mass politics can clearly work, this makes sense only if Clinton believes populism is undesirable, that we shouldn't make a strong left mass movement even though it would be effective. Thus, while he might not be aware of it, Roberts is effectively advocating for technocracy in his article, and Clinton (who probably is aware of it) is advocating for technocracy in her campaign.

And this shouldn't be a surprise, because technocracy is the main strategy of the Democratic establishment. There are far too many examples of this to list, but the most revealing is the actions of Barack Obama, the President whom Clinton has more or less promised to be the 3rd term of. Obama got elected President partly on the back of a large and enthusiastic movement. But rather then try to build it into an independent force that could pressure Congress, even its Democratic members, even Obama himself, in a liberal direction, Obama basically put it on ice until he wanted to use it to advocate for the end result of his legislative sausage-making. Anyone remember this?

This image was all over the place in 2009, and while it's not used much anymore the sentiment that goes with it surely is. Let Obama handle things; our role as citizens, if anything, is merely to support whatever policies and laws he decides on. This is, of course, a fundamentally technocratic way of conceiving politics. And while it's possible that Clinton will repudiate it and enthusiastically support any left movement that might emerge, I'm not holding my breath.

(Disclaimer: It is true that Democrats have been largely respectful of the Black Lives Matter movement. This is because they have to be, as BLM has built for itself a lot of power, both political and cultural. But if BLM starts seriously going after Democrats who are recalcitrant on police reform [aside from disgraced mayor Rahm Emanuel], I expect this to change. But we'll see.)

V

So where does this leave us, then? Sanders is a populist while Clinton is a technocrat, and since populism is correct you should vote Sanders?

Not precisely. There is danger in a Sanders-led mass movement: even if Sanders were a perfect politician (which he's far from being), the movement would dissipate as soon as he leaves office. But it takes decades, at least, for a truly radical movement to succeed in even some of its goals. (The conservative movement began after WWII and only really "won" in 1980, if that. The Civil Rights movement arguably began shortly after the Civil War, which means it took almost a century of activism to tear down Jim Crow.) A left movement cannot be a "Sanders movement"; it needs to be independent of any politician.

Which leads to the question: assuming we can form a left mass movement, does it really matter that much who's President? Would a President Clinton under constant pressure from a left movement be that much different from a President Sanders under constant pressure from a left movement? Perhaps not--in which case, one could accept my entire analysis while still preferring Clinton for other reasons (electability, the symbolic value of a female President, etc).

Despite my clickbait title, though, this article is not ultimately about the Clinton/Sanders primary. What bothers me about Roberts's Vox article, and countless similar ones, is not that it's pro-Clinton but that it's pro-technocracy. A technocrat cannot change the status quo because they disdain the only thing they can. For anyone who believes the status quo is unacceptable, a mass movement is necessary and technocratic incrementalism must be rejected. No matter who wins this November.