Uneasy Essays

Michael Lind—Marx or List?

Michael Lind’s new book The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Metropolitan Elite (2020, Atlantic Books) is a compact argument aimed at a general readership. In it Lind makes the case for a revival of ‘democratic pluralism’, his term for the post-WWII left-right consensus politics of the US and Europe, exemplified by FDR’s ‘New Deal’, and sometimes referred to as the ‘Keynesian consensus’. He emphasises the weakening of the position of labour in the capitalist core countries since the 1970s, both by offshoring of production in search of cheaper labour, and by the importation of immigrant and often illegal workers undercutting wages. He calls for tighter labour markets so that workers in these countries will have greater bargaining power. This involves controlling the international investment of national capital, and controlling labour immigration. The argument is presented as a critique of a neoliberal consensus, and reassertion of the importance of pluralist nationalist politics.

Dignity and the Modern Nation

Two things primed me to write a blog about Francis Fukuyama’s new book Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition. First, last week I gave a lecture to students on our MSc in Nationalism Studies on the key theoretical ideas of Liah Greenfeld. I was explaining to them the central role of the expansion of ‘dignity’, from a preserve of aristocratic elites, to a general property of the members of the nation. For Greenfeld, it is the equal right to dignity that gives the modern nation it’s restless quality, as people are no longer content with their station in life, and must struggle endlessly and competitively to assert their social status. The next day I was at a seminar lecture by David Goodhart (author of The Road to Somewhere) in which he was arguing that the ‘knowledge economy’ in the UK (especially) allowed the more highly educated and fortunate to achieve dignity and recognition, but tended to leave those less cognitively adept adrift, with a kind of status deficit. For him, a lack of access to ‘dignified’ work helps explain support for Brexit, and more general alienation from the current economic and social order in Britain. The weekend before all this, I had listened to David Runciman’s excellent Talking Politics podcast in which he interviewed Fukuyama[1]. That told me enough to know that this theme of dignity and modern politics (national and otherwise) featured there as well, and spurred me to buy the book and read it. Dignity was in the air.

The Letter and the Spirit of Democracy

As I begin to write this on 19 October, 2019, Michael Gove is speaking for the government in Parliament against the Letwin Amendment, which requires that implementing legislation be passed before the Prime Minister’s ‘Brexit Deal’ is approved by Parliament. Once again, he gives the refrain that respect for democracy requires that Parliament support a deal, because that’s what the people voted for (by 52%). A few days earlier, on a BBC show reporting on its own opinion survey on support for a ‘no deal Brexit’, the ever-strident Anne Widdicombe (now with the Brexit Party) was making the same point, that the essence of democracy lies in the result of the referendum vote. On the same panel a world-weary Stephen Kinnock (Labour MP) said that while he voted remain, he has steadily supported proposed deals in Parliament because he respects the referendum vote. However, he has always preferred a ‘soft Brexit’ (customs union, Norway model, etc.) of the type that has never seriously been countenanced by the Conservative Government, under either May or Johnson.

The UK Parliament and Instrumental Populism

In Jan-Werner Müller’s recent short study What is Populism? (2017, Penguin) he defines it as a form of politics characterised by anti-elitism, the imagined oneness of ‘the people’ and their representatives (regardless of the mechanisms of representation), and the categorisation of political opponents as ‘enemies’ outside the body of ‘the people’. Müller calls populism ‘the permanent shadow of representative politics’, in which the necessary pluralism and compromise of modern democratic politics is rejected. It offers a dream of untainted ‘rule by the people’, attempting to bypass the frustrating process of real democracy.

The Relevance of Nationalism Today

Some might argue that the wave of scholarship on nationalism stimulated by decolonisation and subsequently the collapse of the USSR has run its course. Many leading scholars of this era have departed this world—Gellner, Smith, Hobsbawm, Anderson, and Connor. On the other hand, it is easy to point to current developments—Trump, Brexit, Windrush, Syria, North Korea, China—and argue that nationalism is implicated and still highly relevant, perhaps even resurgent. But there are deeper reasons for believing this. Nationalism isn’t just persistently topical, it’s deeply structural. Let me suggest several reasons why nationalism and the need to study it are not going away anytime soon.

Trump’s Inaugural Address: Power, Identity, Narrative

(Jan. 2017)

Presidential inaugural addresses tend to be broad vision statements with gestures towards national unity and purpose. A few policy directions may be outlined, but that is not their main purpose. Donald Trump’s address on 20 January 2017, sits strangely in this genre, stylistically nodding in this general direction, but primarily addressed to his already convinced supporters, more concerned to connect with them, than to intimate policy aims, or include his opposition.

Whither Scotland Post-Referendum

(October 2014)

When I was a graduate student studying anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was conventional to divide anthropological theory between ‘idealist’ and ‘materialist’ approaches. Most students found this distinction meaningful, but at the same time too stark. Today this distinction comes back to haunt me. Having lived in Edinburgh since the late 1990s, working in sociology, and specialising in Scotland and nationalism among other things, our recent referendum on Scottish independence has forced me to think again about this distinction. Not in the sense of having to choose between materialist and idealist modes of analysis, but in terms of witnessing manifest tensions between materialist and idealist types of arguments in the debates that surrounded the referendum. Repeatedly I was struck by how, when confronted by the sheer incalculability of material realities and future economic prospects, hope, aspiration, and enthusiasm seemed to rush in to fill the void. Imponderable, and frankly tedious questions about how much North Sea oil is left, what will become of the Euro, and so on, would run into the ground, to be supplanted by affirmations of sheer will. Before I say more about this, let me back up a bit, and present the general situation.

Referendum Reservations

(Sept. 2014)

So far I have been relatively quiet about my personal views in regard to the Scottish referendum on independence on 18 September. But some close to me have wished that I would join the conversation. There are two things to say at the outset. First, although I have been resident in Scotland for about sixteen years, I am still only a US citizen, and thus not eligible to vote in this referendum, or any UK election. So what I have to say about how I might vote if I could is, as they say ‘academic’. I am not really compelled to make a decision. Second, I have no doubt that Scotland could be viable as a small, independent European country. Scotland’s natural and cultural endowments are at least on a par with the rest of Europe, and its people have as much talent and wisdom as any other five million randomly selected Europeans. So it’s by no means impossible. I have always liked the idea of Scotland as a culturally vibrant social democracy. Neither do I have any particular attachment to the United Kingdom. It has good points and bad points, but it is not sacrosanct, and in due course all things must pass.

On Nationalism and Freedom

(From: ISRF Bulletin, Sept. 2014)

As I write this Scotland, where I live, is about a week away from an historic referendum on the question of whether or not to become independent from the UK. The polls have narrowed—at the moment it is neck and neck between the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ options. In this context (combined with the start of the teaching semester) it is difficult to put one’s mind to much else. But I think I can make a virtue of a necessity, because what people think and feel about freedom has quite a lot to do with this issue. So let me try.