[Marxism] Dukakis

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yesterday I inadvertently omitted Michael Dukakis, the 1988 
Democratic Party presidential candidate, from my "Political economy 
of the sell-out" article. This addendum on the quintessential 
"technocratic" neoliberal candidate is necessary since he 
encapsulates the post-New Deal values that pervade the party today. 
Dukakis was very much into the policy prescriptions of economists 
Lester Thurow and Robert Reich, who unlike the Republicans, believed 
that the government should play a strong role in guiding the economy. 
Unlike traditional New Dealers, however, this meant influencing the 
direction of Fortune 100 companies rather than expanding social welfare.

In the May 16, 1987 issue of the Nation Magazine, Andrew Kopkind 
neatly eviscerated the Democratic candidate's record in a fashion 
that has sadly disappeared from its pages. The article, titled "Have 
We Seen the Future", begins as follows:

"The miracle in Massachusetts has transformed society in ways that 
Governor Michael Dukakis hardly imagined when he began praying and 
planning for economic intervention just a decade ago. McDonald's and 
Burger King are locked in a furious bidding war for entry-level 
employees, optimistically termed semiskilled; in some franchises the 
offered wage is up to $6.25 an hour. As a result, socially useful but 
unprofitable operations, such as day-care centers, which rely on the 
kindness of poorly paid workers, can't find help.

"At the same time, a successful workfare program, which provides the 
service sector with welfare mothers, has so softened support for the 
welfare system that a state court recently declared the Dukakis 
administration derelict in its duty to provide public assistance 
above the poverty line; the Governor is appealing the decision. Nor 
is there any continuing public day care, well-staffed or not, for the 
children of workfare or the other offspring of the miracle.

"Meanwhile, fathers all over the state are feeding tuna fish 
sandwiches and fried hamburgers to their kids for stand-up kitchen 
dinners every night, while their absent wives juggle jobs, meetings 
and exercise sessions just to keep abreast of prosperity and progress 
in the nation's premier postindustrial culture. The unintended 
consequences of miracles sometimes make the truly devout wish their 
prayers had never been answered."

Dukakis became the candidate because he epitomized the 
"post-industrial" outlook of Democratic Party policy mavens who had 
figured out that their rust-belt social base of blue-collar trade 
unionists was no longer useful. As governor of Massachusetts, Dukakis 
viewed the closing of textile mills as a necessary stage in the 
evolution of a new type of economy that would prioritize high tech 
companies along Route 128 that ringed Boston, as well as the FIRE 
(finance, insurance, and real estate).

Kopkind continued:

 >>"Economists talk about the 'invisible hand' guiding the economy,'' 
Teresa Amott, an economist and welfare advocate at the University of 
Massachusetts, explained, "but here we had an invisible foot." Mass 
emigration was proceeding apace; the population was plummeting; the 
birth rate was among the lowest in the nation; and economic growth 
was only a quarter of the U.S. average. Grumbling grew to a deafening 
roar. The corporate community was on a tear after a decade of 
defensiveness. Its counterattack on the self-doubting and fatigued 
forces of the 1960s"the consumer movement, environmentalism, 
redistributive politics, welfare advocacy, programmatic 
liberalism-fmed on every affront to the privilege of the business 
class. Every mention of a tax rise brought threats of retaliatory 
relocation; every new idea or policy proposal was subverted with 
predictions of job loss.

Dukakis began his term as a target of corporate terrorism, and, in 
the hearts and minds of the business community, he never moved from 
the enemy camp. But in the opinion of his liberal supporters he 
surrendered almost as the first volleys were fired. In 1975 he froze 
the budget, which in effect cut social programs and welfare benefits. 
The Freeze of '75 was another kind of model: the first neoliberal 
game plan for an America of declining expectations. Tens of thousands 
of poor people were taken off the state Medicaid program. Hospital 
and mental health services were cut. Grants to towns and cities were 
slashed, projects abandoned, aid denied. Dukakis seemed bent on 
pleasing the business elite. He supported the oil companies who 
wanted to drill off the Georges Bank; he would not oppose plans for 
the Seabrook nuclear power plant in nearby New Hampshire; and he was 
"careless," as an early supporter told me, about eastern 
Massachusetts' biggest nuclear facility, at Plymouth, which has 
turned into a bigger lemon.<<

For those at the bottom, Dukakis only offered a training program 
called the Employment and Choices Program that supposedly would 
convert an unemployed textile worker or welfare mother into a more 
marketable source of labor power. But Amott revealed to Kopkind that 
40 percent of the women in the program went back to welfare within a 
year. Of course, Bill Clinton made sure that they no longer had that 
option after he became president.


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