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31 October 2006. 
In a recent commentary on ZNet entitled The Liberals Answer Tony Judt’s “Useful Idiots” Charge, Professor Edward S Herman performs an incisive analysis on the Weltanschauung of the so-called «liberals», two of whom, Bruce Ackerman and Todd Gitlin, in an article article in the journal American Prospect (which, with the modesty typical of this breed of «liberals» refers to itself as an «authoritative magazine of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics» - the watchword here is, of course, the adjective «effective») attempt to parry Tony Judt's recent criticism of their ignoble roles in promoting the current crusades to which King George have given the name (among many others in the search to find one that goes home) «the War on Terrorism». Professor Herman, of course, takes his criticism of these «liberals» further then Mr Judt was able or willing to do, and backs it up, as usual, with telling documentation. His article is brief and as an innoculation against the establishment platitudes to be found on the OpEd pages of, say, the New York Times, a must read ; here I confine myself to citing the last paragraph :In short, an imperial and militarized state will use its military power relentlessly, and the feedback effects of this chronic warfare are inevitably going to entail encroachments on domestic freedom. But A-G [i e, Ackerman and GitlinMHD] can’t confront this deeper relationship and challenge militarism and the imperial state. They adapt to it, and in the process “liberal principles” are compromised and thrust aside, and the liberals do in fact serve as the imperial state’s “useful idiots.”
Here below is the response I posted to StumbleUpon :
There are, of course, «liberals» and «liberals» ; the former group reasonably loyal to a set of universal principles which, while tending to neglect the (to my mind) obvious base of certain political, economic, and social problems in capitalistic forms of alienation and exploitation, do attempt to ameliorate these problems, uphold human rights (not merely abroad as a fig leaf for imperialist aggression, but even in their own countries), and combat militarism. The latter, whom we might call «establishment liberals», however, are not universalists but particularists in the service of (their) Empire ; they tend to criticise their mirror twins, the neo-conservatives, not from the point of view of principle but rather that of efficiency and competence ; their objection to, e g, the US/UK war on Iraq and Afghanistan is not that it was and is illegal and unprincipled, but that it has been poorly run. These people have been immensely successful as apologists for the US empire, which they have managed to portray as a giant who, bumbling at times and rather unsophisticated (how pleasing to the self-esteem of members of this group to feel themselves more «sophisticated» than those responsible for US policy !) and who by virtue of his size sometimes demolishes a few vases in the porcelain shop that is the world (for some reason, these metaphors never quite recreate the horror of being blown apart by a bomb dropped from an F-16, or being tortured by CIA operatives or their foreign clients), always means well and is deeply dedicated to «human rights» and «democracy», unlike his «Axis of Evil» foes....
Professor Herman's reply to the reply of certain «liberals» of this latter persuasion to an article by Tony Judt in a recent issue of the London Review of Books, dissects the fallacious and self-interested reasoning which these last-named bring to market (where, of course, it fetches a good price, as such apologetics tend to do). A must read !...
7 September 2006.
Ever since St Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Marquis W Childs published his Sweden, the Middle Way in the 1930s, Scandinavia, and in particular Sweden has held a special place in the heart of liberals in North America and Western Europe, people who feared and abhorred Communists, but who worried that the cruelty and excesses of capitalism could lead to a Communist revolution, which could not be suppressed simply by calling out the police or the troops. That something of this attitude survives, 70-odd years later, is shown by Professor Joseph Stiglitz' commentary in the commentisfree section of today's Guardian, entitled Making globalisation work, and which discusses what needs to be done to make globalisation work for everybody, rather than just a privileged few. Whether or not this will happen depends upon whether that privileged few see to their long-term, rather than their short-term interests (but, citing Keynes, Professor Stiglitz points out that «in the long run, we are all dead»). In the US and the UK, of course, it is the short-term interests - not least of those who profit from (others) waging war, that have won the day, with the result that, in Stiglitz' words «the US and others following its example are becoming rich countries with poor people». Thus, once again, as in the 1930s when the Great Depression harried world economy (with one notable exception, the Soviet Union), liberals in the «West» look to the Scandinavian example to save the day. Alas, they rarely seem to note how contested this example is in the Scandinavian countries themselves, and to what a slight shift in the balance of power between the two blocs could lead. Below, my response to Professor Stiglitz' commentary, as posted to commentisfree :
«But the Scandinavian countries have shown that there is another way. Of course, government, like the private sector, must strive for efficiency. But investments in education and research, together with a strong social safety net, can lead to a more productive and competitive economy, with more security and higher living standards for all. A strong safety net and an economy close to full employment provides a conducive environment for all stakeholders - workers, investors, and entrepreneurs - to engage in the risk-taking that new investments and firms require.»
Alas, what Professor Stiglitz - who, of course, does not reside in a Scandinavian country - doesn't seem to realise is that the policies that have characterised these countries, and which, I agree, have been largely successful in countering the downside of globalisation, are not graven in stone. The local «winners» in the globalisation process know quite well, that they can «win» even more (at least for the short term), if they don't have to pay to help the «losers». If the political parties that represent these classes and groups come to power in Sweden in the general elections to be held here on 17 September, we are definitely not going to see more of the type of investment Stiglitz recommends - rather more and more segregation in the schools with the continued weakening of the public school system and a strengthening of the a private school system financed by a «voucher» system, and a drastic dismantling of the safety net which has made the risk-taking inherent in the creation of new enterprises possible and acceptable for large segments of the population. The «Swedish model» will be abandoned for a US/UK model which is seen as more dynamic - by those who stand to profit from it. In that event, we shall probably witness more back-lash and more «crisis-driven change», even in this hitherto fairly calm segment of the globe....
