The Telos Press Podcast: Timothy W. Luke's The Travails of Trumpification

Today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast features a panel discussion of Timothy W. Luke’s new book, The Travails of Trumpification, published earlier this month by Telos Press. The discussion, in which Tim is joined by David Pan, Fred Siegel, and Mark S. Weiner, covers a range of topics and questions, including the meaning and origins of “Trumpification”; Trump’s contempt for democratic liberal norms; the emergence of a progressive habitus in the early twentieth century; the critique of liberal managerialism; the rhetoric of the “forgotten little guy” (à la Rodney Dangerfield); the purposeful use of ignorance to send up the degreed classes; the extent to which Trump emerged out of “Nixonland”; Trump’s undermining of the claims of scientific truth; the relationship of science to political interest, and how each should inform the other; the populist attack on the New Class; Trump’s elevation of individual winning over larger collective interests and the public good; the weakening of a rationalist epistemology on which democracy depends in favor of an ethos of pure power; how the Afghanistan withdrawal and the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated the public’s disdain for expertise; and how power might be shifted from the administrative state to the local level as a way of integrating all members of the public in political decision-making and thereby revitalizing citizenship. Timothy W. Luke’s The Travails of Trumpification is now available in our online store, where you can save 20% off the list price by using the coupon code BOOKS20.

Listen to the podcast here.

Continue reading →

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Isaac Lopez’s comments in “Why Trump Will Win” anticipate Trump’s reelection as the result of a reactionary backlash by a conservative moderate public. This backlash is directed at a weak and failing leadership in the Republican Party and a Democratic Party that has abandoned the “silent majority” for the interests of minorities and women. Yet not only is it questionable whether this analysis of the backlash offers any insight, it is questionable whether the backlash is even representative of mainstream public opinion. There is more of a consensus for the progressive agenda than Lopez is willing to admit. The wealthy suburbs of New York are as much inclined to vote for a progressive Black gay candidate as a working-class district in Queens is inclined to elect a progressive Latinx. Most of all, let us not forget that even in the face of personal animosity, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes. So how does all of this square with the reactionary backlash of the “silent majority”?

As we all know, Trump won the presidency through the Electoral College by winning Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania with about 70 thousand votes. It is possible that the reactionary backlash in these states flipped them for Trump. But not only does this not make them representative of public opinion, given the fragmented, unverified, and biased sources that feed public opinion today; it is questionable whether the reactionary backlash is itself founded on serious grievances. With demographic inequalities shifting the balance of federal power to states less representative of the national consensus, the outcome of presidential elections is determined by a few states where local opinion, whether informed, uninformed, or dis-informed, can determine the long-term outcome of national politics.

Continue reading →

Martin Sklar’s Theory of Capitalism and Socialism

Erik Olin Wright’s “Martin Sklar’s Theory of Capitalism and Socialism” appears in Telos 186 (Spring 2019). Read the full article at the Telos Online website, or purchase a print copy of the issue in our online store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are available in both print and online formats.

This essay explores how Martin Sklar’s typology of the patterns of thought that have animated social and political struggles in capitalist societies since the mid-nineteenth century can, with some modification, be incorporated into a more general analytical framework for thinking about alternatives to capitalism. Sklar frames his analysis primarily in terms of two contrasts—between what he calls “utopian” and “realist” modes of thoughts, and between capitalism and socialism as ways of organizing political-economy institutions. He supports a realist mode of thought that examines the ways in which socialist elements emerge within capitalism, creating various kinds of hybrids through what he calls the “capitalism/socialism interplay.” The prospects for progressive social change come out of that interplay. This essay proposes modifying Sklar’s framework in two respects: First, rather than rejecting the utopian mode of thought, utopian models can be useful as a way of clarifying the normative foundations of struggles for human emancipation and the logical connections between different elements of proposed alternatives to existing institutions and social structures. Second, while Sklar is correct that real economic systems contain hybrids of capitalist and noncapitalist elements, it is a mistake to lump all relevant noncapitalist elements under the rubric “socialist.” Specifically, it is useful to distinguish statism from socialism. This creates a more nuanced conceptual map of possibilities and points more clearly to the problem of democratizing state and democratizing the economy as the central task of progressive politics.

Continue reading →

A Man between Two Worlds: Assessing Martin Sklar’s Philosophy of Liberalism

Kim R. Holmes’s “A Man between Two Worlds: Assessing Martin Sklar’s Philosophy of Liberalism” appears in Telos 186 (Spring 2019), as part of a symposium on Martin J. Sklar. Read the full article at the Telos Online website, or purchase a print copy of the issue in our online store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are available in both print and online formats.

Martin Sklar is an underappreciated thinker. The fact that he was a leading intellectual of the New Left in the 1960s and remained a self-identified leftist gave him a unique historical perspective. It enabled him to cut through many misunderstandings and clichés about the history of American liberalism, and gives us an opportunity to understand the left’s theory of community in a different light. One of Sklar’s central theses is his contention that the American system during the Progressive Era became a “mix” of capitalism and socialism. Looking at this background, one of Sklar’s more prescient theses is his distinction between the “broad left” and the “sectarian left.” This also informs his insightful idea of the “transvestiture of left and right”—that the left and right have largely changed historical places on ideas. The postmodern left is very different from, and indeed has largely broken off ideologically from, classic as well as mainstream liberalism as it has been understood in the past. One very important component missing from Sklar’s approach is religion. It must be recognized that the post-revolutionary construct in America helped ensure that the freedom of civil society as a liberal project could not fully flourish without the support of religion. Sklar’s work illuminates the great intellectual divide between classic liberalism and socialism, and between the moderate and radical Enlightenment legacies, which rest on two different views of human nature. However, if a choice had to be made between liberty and the dictates of community, Sklar always chose liberty.

Continue reading →

Poland after 1989 and Canada after the “Trudeau Revolution”: Comparing the Emergence of “National Democracy” and Late-Modern “Liberal Democracy”

The following paper was presented at the conference “After the End of Revolution: Constitutional Order amid the Crisis of Democracy,” co-organized by the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute and the National Research University Higher School of Economics, September 1–2, 2017, Moscow. For additional details about the conference as well as other upcoming events, please visit the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute website.

This presentation compares two societies, which, although both claim to be “Western” as well as vibrant liberal democracies, are in many aspects quite different. Those societies have been shaped by their history and political culture to evolve in quite different directions. Nevertheless, they can both be seen as “post-revolutionary” societies.

Poland has had a very checkered history, from being a Great Power, to disappearing from the map of Europe, which has contributed to a strongly “erotic” sense of belonging among the Poles. Poland after 1989—the so-called Third Republic—has been in the difficult process of attempting a restoration of a more traditional Polish society, whose organic evolution and development had been so cruelly interrupted since 1939.

Continue reading →

Sklar: Capitalism-Socialism Mix

This is the third in a series of posts that introduce the thought of historian Martin J. Sklar, as a prelude to a print symposium on his life and work in a future issue of Telos. For a fuller introduction, refer to the head note to the first TELOSscope post. Whereas the first two posts showcased the historian’s engagement with philosophy, this post highlights one of his important contributions to political economy. Sklar profoundly reinterprets the idea of a “mixed economy,” on the basis of the new concepts of “capitalist investment component” (CIC) and “socialist investment component” (SIC). In so doing, he also clarifies the meanings of capitalism and socialism as political-economic systems. Like conventional “mixed economy” theorists, Sklar came to believe that there would be a long historical period during which advanced societies would combine features of capitalism and features of socialism, with the later gaining gradual ascendancy. His understanding of which features belong to which system, however, upends conventional theories of government = socialism, “private” sector = capitalism.

Continue reading →