Plasma Pool

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

Prominent national Democrats, wary of opening themselves up to caricature as socialists or communists, are notoriously skittish when it comes to articulating the flaws in our particular form of free-market capitalism. European liberal politicians, perhaps thanks to the increased diversity of expressed opinions in a parliamentary system, are freer than their American counterparts to levy such critiques, but for the most part, substantive critiques of late capitalism are left to leftist European intellectuals, a handful other sorts of critical theorists and social researchers, and the occasional worthwhile popular title, such as Naomi Klein’s recent The Shock Doctrine. Mainstream American liberals—despite being demonstrably superior stewards of the economy in contemporary history—rarely succeed in articulating for the public the distinction between the generic capitalism praised by conservatives in campaigns and the the radical capitalism of the so-caled “ownership society” instituted by conservatives when they take up the reins of government. The mainstream American left, that is, too often shies away from, or simply fails at, illuminating iniquities and inequalities inherent in radical capitalism for fear of appearing to have indicted capitalism as such.

When mainstream figures who are usually silent on politics loudly assert the need for progressive modifications to our system, the silence of the American left is thrown into high-relief. In the immediate wake of the Lehman Bros. collapse, this is precisely what happened. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the global Anglican Church, for one, not only placed blame for our global financial crisis firmly with the United States, but specifically chastised laissez-faire capitalism—the governing economic philosophy of the United States since Reagan—for its “blind trust in the righteousness of the market,” a trust so slavish that Williams maintains it has become a form of  “idolatry.” Williams even cites the Marx, saying of laissez-faire capitalism, “he was right about that, if about little else.”

Williams’s admission that our crisis is not the result of a “temporary imbalance” of a fundamentally sound capitalist system, but rather a predictable consequence of the system itself, is cheering; Williams is an influential public voice. But that he has been moved to speak on the subject at all—especially with such harsh words for the United States—is indicative of the lack of principled leadership on this issue on the American left. We need to be hearing these tough truths from political leaders, not our religious leaders.

Even today, amid the onset of a global financial crisis, American liberals are damnably skittish when it comes to indicting the bankruptcy of Ayn Rand capitalism and calling for specific, progressive modifications to American capitalist democracy. Barack Obama, for instance—in the negotiation of the first, failed bailout package—denied a request from the House Progressive Caucus to push for badly needed bankruptcy reform, insisting that this sensitive time didn’t call for politics—that it’d be a fight, and this is no time for fighting.

Obama’s objection is understandable as a political tactic to ensure a Democratic victory in November—at least if Obama is genuinely committed to supporting particular, progressive modifications such as bankruptcy reform should he be elected, as his stated plans for the economy, and his recent rhetoric on the economy, suggest that he is. But while acknowledging the indisputable value of that measure, we must ask ourselves—if not today than on November 3, regardless of who wins leadership of the free world the day before—how best to proceed in making the case for fundamental revisions of an unstable and unjust system.

The challenge for a President Obama, should we be so lucky, will be to selectively and strategically intensify his sincere fetishization of “bipartisanship”—”to distinguish,” as John B. Judis puts it, “when he should worship at the altar of bipartisanship [from] when he should remember who brought him to the White House”—while ensuring that his objective of dismantling partisan divides does not prevent the mainstream American left from articulating and vindicating an argument for meaningful market regulation and thoughtful, responsible, and constructive systemic protections for the middle class, the working class, and the poor. When could the audience be more receptive than today (or, rather, very soon after today), when an illumination of each party’s distinct economic philosophy casts Democrats the manifest “compassionate conservatives” and shows radical capitalism—with its accommodatingly radical posterboy, the newly Learlike John McCain—to be the flawed but fixable system that it is?