So a friend recently recommended Robert Putnam's book "Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again." We discussed it at length privately but I do want to at least discuss it briefly on here.
Basically, the guy's premise was that over the past 125 years or so, we spent around 60 years from the 1900s to the 1960s becoming more collectivist, which gave us more progressive institutions overall, but then in the 1960s things reversed the other way, and in the process, we entered a second gilded age. This thesis roughly mirror Robert Reich's arguments that between 1929 and the modern day there is a suspension bridge of inequality, where in both 1929 and the modern day we have reached insane peaks, but that from the great depression to around 1970 we went downwards toward a more equal society, and starting in 1970 we've become unequal again.
Putnam approaches this largely from a sociological perspective, looking at things like relatively collectivist attitudes, in which we thought of ourselves more as a collective than as individuals, and strong engagement and belief in various institutions such as unions, clubs, etc. He also cites a great cultural undoing of this in the 1960s, in which society pushed back against the stifling collectivism of the 1950s and this led to more individualistic expression in the 1960s and 1970s, which led to a decline in institutions and attitudes that made us more equal from then onward.
Ultimately, I'm going to be honest. i liked the book, and I generally agree with the premise, but from a political science perspective I can't help but view things very differently. I tend to look at things in terms of party alignments. There's a theory going around that every few decades, generally speaking every 36 years, but it can vary and this rule has gotten weaker in modern times presumably because of increase lifespans and world war ii leading to relatively unequal demographics that messed up the pattern, generally speaking, every few decades, you get party realignments. And a lot of Putnam's theory, in my opinion, can also be explained via party realignment theory. For example, I would separate America in the time frame Putnam mentioned into five distinct eras.
1896-1932- The Progressive Era
1932-1968- The New Deal Era
1968-1980- Transition period
1980-2016- Neoliberal Era
2016-present- Another transition period
I mean if I wanted to go further back, I could also include these prior American eras of history
1860-1896- Civil War/Reconstruction/Gilded Age
1828-1860- Populist Era
1796-1828- Federalist/Anti Federalist Era
I mean, it happens like clockwork. But say, for the sake of argument, we look at Putnam's theory through this lens.
1896-1932- So, this is the progressive era, which was heralded in by William Jennings Bryan's presidential run. Bryan was a populist, and he was critical of the gilded age, which had been a growing concern in the previous decades. But, for the most part, in the 1860-1896 era, you largely had republican dominated politics, with the gilded age and its concerns only becoming an issue in the second half. By 1896 all of those dividing lines that had defined the country since the civil war had shifted, and we saw more of a focus toward wealth inequality.
Of course, institutional changes were slow in this era. While you had some incremental changes under say, Roosevelt, you didn't really see MASSIVE shifts in this era. But, as Putnam would point out, the attitudes toward the people started becoming more collective in this era. You started seeing more labor organizing, etc. And this grassroots effect did have an effect further down the road. It really was the beginning of people pushing back against hyper individualist gilded age politics, toward a more collective form of politics. While the 1920s were a temporary reversal of this, the great depression in 1929 basically acted as a catalyst, which propelled FDR to power in 1932.
In 1932, the country was in deep trouble. We were in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in modern times, if not all times, and the country was on the verge of collapse. In Russia, we saw the rise of communism just a few years before. In other parts of Europe like Germany and Italy, we saw the rise of Fascism. So FDR shifted hard left, and essentially saved liberal democracy and capitalism as we know it, by passing the new deal. And the new deal was a bit of a third way between capitalism and socialism. It was the start of a new social democratic era in democratic politics, with widespread institutional reforms. It also led to the near destruction of the republican party. The GOP only came back after 20 years in 1952, where the public FINALLY got tired of democratic party leadership, and the republicans ran a moderate platform that was almost the same thing. This paradigm held through 1968, where the new deal coalition came to an end.
Now, the thing about party realignment theory is a lot of it has to do with demographics. One generation replaces another. People die, others are born and come to age, and old people are replaced by new people. And that's generally what drives realignments. Generational shifts.
Now, this is where Putnam spends a lot of his effort. What happened in the 1960s? Well, according to him, we saw a massive cultural shift from "we" to "I", in which we became more self centered, individualistic, and less attached to our institutions and common culture. You could argue that. The Boomers started coming to age after WWII around that time, and the generation that launched the new deal in the 1930s has become fairly old by this point. The country was gripped by crises from Vietnam, to civil rights, to poverty, and ultimately, during this time, people stopped caring about the collective. The official political narrative would, in my opinion, put most of the blame on civil rights actually. You always had this uneasy coalition in the New Deal Era where the coalition relied on white southerners to have its unbeatable majority, and in the 1960s that fractured as northern democrats under the Kennedy/Johnson administrations went hard in the direction of civil rights, to the point of alienating the south. THis led to, in 1968, the south voting for George Wallace and the democratic party losing its unbeatable coalition. I would also kind of blame the democrats being unresponsive to the needs and desires of young progressive democrats and Humphrey just not being a popular candidate. because, you know, institutionally democrats are crap and have been crap since...the 1960s. They've always been tone deaf and hostile to much of their own voter base throughout the modern era.And this allowed Nixon to come back in 1972 and run the Southern Strategy that allows them to win over those southern whites using dog whistle politics, thus giving the GOP an unbeatable coalition. And while corruption kind of sidelined this ascendent republican party in 1976, the Carter administration was the last gasp of the new deal era, and given his failures, Reagan came in 1980 and pushed hardcore individualism and realigned the parties.
That's basically the political narrative. Putnam, on the other hand, focused on the shift from collectivism and seeing the country as a community to individualism, and you know what? i think he's not wrong here. In the 1960s there was that tipping point, and he makes a good case for it. Boomers coming to age and becoming a dominant voting bloc in the 1964-1980 era definitely did contribute to the shift, and boomers were more individualistic, often referred to as the "me" generation. I think that the focus to civil rights and identity politics did also alienate people. Like, this is something I don't feel Putnam puts enough focus on, but I think that the shared 'we" sentiment only really applied to white males. Women being in the kitchen and blacks being inferior was always just a given in many peoples' minds. And while both groups generally benefited largely during the "we" era in a "rising tide raises all boats" kind of way, once the narrative started explicitly being about things like feminism and civil rights in the 1960s and 1970s, I feel like this created a backlash that essentially made people who previously were collectivist more individualist. because it really wasn't about "them" any more. "We" only really meant "white males" and once the narrative shifted away from them, I feel like people just...went back the other way. They became more individualistic and collective sentiment disappeared. And generally speaking, the shift toward individualism DID explicitly lead to the rise of Reagan. Back during WWII, people made all kinds of sacrifices for the economy. Goods and services were rationed to insane degrees. And people tolerated this due to the war. But by the 1970s when stagflation hit, the people backlashed against carter who told them to wear sweaters and turn the heat down. Americans became extremely selfish from the 1940s to the 1970s, and you can see clear cultural shifts there.
I kind of have a theory, that the hard times of the gilded age created a desire for collective action. But by the 1960s, the times were so good, and the problems shifted from being about material inequalities to being about wanting more freedom and individual expression, that the boomer generation coming to age just rebelled against old norms. And this meant by 1980, they were voting for Reagan, having enough of collectivism for a lifetime
And that's where I come in, being born in the late 80s. The neoliberal era did explicitly undo a lot of our institutions. Reaganism attacked unions, high taxes, social safety nets. Etc. Everyone focused on short term profits, and less on the individual good for the community, and a generation of this paradigm led to the undoing of much of the progress made in the 20th century. In the 21st century, we millennials describe the situation as arriving to a party that's already over, and basically being forced to clean up after it. We entered our economic adulthood with the great recession, which has scarred us, and many of us have rebelled against Reagan and Bush era right wing economics. We voted for Obama for hope and change, but didn't get it, and we've become deeply cynical in the two party system as it exists. This ultimately led to 2016, another realignment year. Where the dems basically abandoned the working class for white suburbanites, and an ascendant ironclad democratic coalition suddenly imploded. The rust belt went to Trump, as the democrats tried to expand to the south, and people are still reeling from what happened.
I've been calling it all along, it's another political realignment. Except, instead of an ascendent democratic majority that was predicted in 2015, we got the worst of both worlds as the democrats decided to pursue centrism and identity politics, and the republicans regained their popularity through Trumpian populism. So now we're heading toward a much darker realignment than i could have predicted, and yeah.
For Putnam, we basically need to get back out shared sentiment in order to be collective again. But if you follow his advice, this will take way too long, for benefits that are way too brief. Seriously. If it takes two generations to build a communitarian coalition, and one generation to destroy it, we're at a disadvantage. And that's basically what happened. It took an entire generation of progressive era organizing just to get the new deal, and then after a generation of actual institutional change, we changed back on a dime and went hard back toward individualism. And the effects were much more immediate. That's not good. While I do believe that millennials and zoomers are more collectivist than say, boomers and gen X, we dont really have the political power or organizing to do anything. And while I am kind of optimistic about unionization efforts finally happening here in the 2020s, I don't really want to wait until mid century to see REAL positive changes. I want that crap NOW.
Also, it should be noted that collectivism is unpopular. Americans are still very individualist. Most are so selfish they refuse to put on masks or get vaccinated and want people to work in dangerous environments for sub par wages to provide them cheap luxury goods and services for their entitled mentalities. And even among more collective minded ones, like say, me, I'm NOT really looking forward to old school collectivism again. I'm not a social person. I dont enjoy clubs, or charity work, or the idea of unions. My entire political perspective is actually a more individualistic version of left wing politics with greater respect for individual autonomy and freedom. I kind of reject the collectivist attitudes but want the rewards regardless, so I pursue a synthesis of the ideas, that respects freedom and individuality as much as possible while still providing the benefits of such things. i get why boomers turned on the old left. i dont want those mistakes to happen again, and my ideology, as an ex conservative myself, is literally designed to bypass those problems. The problem with collectivist spirit is it must be continually maintained, but just like happened in the 1960s, it WON'T be. People will turn on it quickly, and then things will unravel. My goal to stop that is essentially to create a system where most people individually benefit and would have to be stupid to fight this stuff. And while I admit our country has a stupidity issue, as long as enough people are smart enough to see the benefits of say, UBI and universal healthcare, those programs won't be targetted and repealed.
So, idk, I don't really see eye to eye with Putnam. Because I'm not part of the old left. i dont particularly value the come back of old 20th century liberalism or collectivism. It has its benefits, but it had its flaws. And I dont see a consensus around such ideas for long. People are too selfish for that, especially in America. And while I think Putnam would view selfishness as a problem, I do think it should be embraced and accepted to some degree. The key is working around it and trying to find a way to enjoy collective benefits without demanding the kinds of sustained shared sacrifice traditional collectivist political orders require. Again, all the benefits of collectivism, with the minimum sacrifices. That's what I'm about. Kind of a synthesis, attempting to counter the weaknesses of both paradigms.
Still, regardless of the disagreements I have with Putnam, it's a good book. I like it a lot. I generally agree with the overall premise, with my framings and approaches to the problems being more nuanced critiques given my more hybrid political philosophy. And I feel like my ideology would work better if it can only gain support. After all, the kinds of philosophies that inform me were designed explicitly to counter neoliberalism, and reinvent the left within a neoliberal era. And for me, that's what's needed. The left is never going to win if it requires a culture based on collectivist sentiment and shared sacrifice. Americans just don't go for that stuff. We need something that combines the values of individualism and freedom, with economic security for all. Which is what I think my particular ideology does.
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