Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Disappointing leftist explanation for populism and its cure. Lind begins his book with two profound quotes from others: “The problem of classes is this: Class conflict is essential if freedom is to be preserved, because it is the only barrier against class domination; yet class conflict, pursued to excess, may well destroy the underlying fabric of common principle which sustains free society.” ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER JR., The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom (1949) “No theory, no promises, no morality, no amount of good will, no religion will restrain power. . . . Only power restrains power.” JAMES BURNHAM, The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom (1943) Unfortunately, Lind’s analysis and proposals for America’s Class Warfare lack comparable insight. Lind says the conflict is between an “overclass” of the Managerial Elite (“this group of college-educated managers and professionals”) who are said to be in “a struggle with three sides” - against a divided native and immigrant “working class”. My first disagreement with Lind is that the opposition to rule by the American “elite” is not composed primarily of, or limited to, the non-college-educated working class. Regardless of its individual characteristics, Lind believes that “the underlying cause [of populism] is the same—long-smoldering rage by non-college-educated workers against damage done to their economic bargaining power, political influence, and cultural dignity during the half-century revolution from above of technocratic neoliberalism.” Moving on, echoing James Burnham and James Madison, Lind asserts that only power can check power. Then, in typical leftist utopian fashion, Lind advocates a sweeping new program of “democratic pluralism,” to restore the economic, political and cultural power of the working class: “Although the old parties, unions, and churches cannot be restored in their historic forms, the restoration of working-class power on both sides of the Atlantic requires the establishment of membership institutions to serve as their functional equivalents. These functional equivalents might be called the “guild” in the realm of the economy, the “ward” in the realm of government, and the “congregation” in the realm of culture.” These new proposed comprehensive social institutions will be created and sponsored by the ruling elites out of “fear” of a majoritarian revolution. Nonetheless, Lind concedes that such an outcome would be atypical: “The historical record in many countries shows that when populist outsiders challenge oligarchic insiders, the oligarchs almost always win. The oligarchs may not have numbers, but they control most of the wealth, expertise, and political influence and dominate the media, universities, and nonprofit sectors. Most populist waves break and disperse on the concrete seawalls of elite privilege.” In that event, Lind foresees a possibility of a “banana republic” future: “The greatest threat to Western democracy is the gradual decay of North America and Europe under well-educated, well-mannered, and well-funded centrist neoliberal politicians into something like the regimes that have long been familiar in many Latin American countries and the American South, in which oppressive oligarchic rule provokes destructive populist revolts.” I was hoping for a new interesting insight on populism, but I was disappointed. Two stars for Lind’s statistics. A better explanation and prediction for the end game of populism is contained in Kurt Schlichter’s book Militant Normals: How Regular Americans Are Rebelling Against the Elite to Reclaim Our Democracy: “America cannot survive with an Elite that hates its own people, especially when that hate drives the Elite to wage a cultural war against them. One side has to win; the other side has to change. Either the Elite has to morph back into a caste that shares and respects the basic values of those it leads, or the Normals must opt to accept permanent serfdom under the stiletto heel of people who despise them. If you have ever hung around Normal Americans—and many of the Elite never have—you probably know which one of these options is simply not going to happen.”