中岡望の目からウロコのアメリカ

2005/3/9 水曜日

ICU 「アメリカ文化研究:保守主義対リベラリズム」授業の学生のレポート(1)

Filed under: - nakaoka @ 0:09

最近、オリバー・ストーンの「アレキサンダー」を見ました。彼のベトナム戦争3部作や「ニクソン」「JFK]などと比べると大味の映画で、一番できが悪かった気がします。来日中、テレビのインタビューで著名なキャスターがイラク戦争と映画の関係を聞いていましたが、そういうレベルの映画ではないく、的外れな質問だと思いました。ICU(国際基督教大学)の冬学期が終りました。ICUは3学期制で、春学期は4~6月、秋学期が9~12月、冬学期が12~2月です。冬学期で「アメリカ研究:保守主義対リベラリズム」と題する講義を行いました。その「シラバス(授業案)」は本ブログにも掲載していますので、興味のある方はご覧ください。学生が6名と実質ゼミ並のクラスでしたが、十分に楽しい授業ができました。学生には、授業中のアサインメントとは別に各人に1冊ずつ異なった本をアサインメントとして与えました。以下に学生の了解を得たうえで3名のレポートを掲載します。本のりビューと授業で教えたことを結びつけて議論を展開するというのが課題です。学年は2年から4年と多様です。興味のある方は、是非、読んでください。

(1)
Michiko Sugita (杉田道子:2年生)
課題の本「Follies of FDR’s Big Government」

In his book FDR’s Folly, Jim Powell illustrates how Roosevelt and his New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. Although most historians have focused on chronicling Franklin D. Roosevelt’s charismatic personality, his brilliance as a strategist and communicator, the dramatic One Hundred Days, the First New Deal, the Second New Deal, and the “court-packing” plan, Powell chose to focus on the negative effects of the New Deal and its failure as an economic policy. The New Deal was, as David M. Kennedy wrote, “not a recovery program, or at any rate not an effective one” (Kennedy 361). The Great Depression was an international phenomenon. However, compared to the United States, it was less severe and lasted for a shorter period of time in most other countries. As Powell surmised, it was most likely due to the New Deal that the United States could not get out of its critical situation.

Many of the New Deal plans, based on “progressive” ideas, worsened the economical situation of the United States during the 1930s. For example, one of Roosevelt’s main policies involved state and federal unit banking laws that led to the failure of over ninety percent of the banks. These laws prevented banks from diversifying their loan portfolios and their source of funds. However, in local regions, banks were vulnerable to failure when the local business was bad because all their loans were given to people who lived in that area. (Powell ) Another aspect of the New Deal, the second Glass-Steagall Act, also weakened the banking system by breaking up the strongest banks. It tried to weaken large corporate conglomerates because Roosevelt and other New Dealers were suspicious of large powers. They feared the birth of monopolies and exploitation from these businesses. As a result, this act attempted to separate commercial banking from investment banking. However, it only led to a further weakening of the American economy.

Thirdly, Roosevelt tripled taxes during the Great Depression, specifically from $1.6 billion in 1933 to $5.3 billion in 1940. As a result, the general public was burdened with various types of taxes, and this decreased the people’s motivation for and their capability of investment. This occurred in conjunction with the persistence of high unemployment, for example 17.2% from 1934 to 1940, which, though seen as a critical issue, could not be resolved throughout the New Deal Period. As a whole, “all the highly publicized relief programs and public works projects could not make up for the damage inflicted by New Deal taxes (),” and the much heralded government spending did not work as a cure, the author insisted.
As for other New Deal economic policies, such as the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), Civil Aeronautics Act (CAA), and Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), the government tried to control the market through these acts, and these prevented price changes from occurring with flexibility. NIRA, for instance, maintained above-market retail prices and above-market airline tickets. This, however, made everything more expensive. Restrictions and price fix made it impossible for producers to increase output or cut prices. The NRA (National Recovery Administration) pressured labor unions against striking, and empowered labor unions to draft codes that required industries to pay wages that were above the market’s minimum level. The most obvious error in the high wage theory is “its tacit assumption that a high wage rate is identical with a high total volume of purchasing power in the hands of labor,” as Harvard University economics professor Edward Chamberlin said (Powell 118). A short while later, the NIRA was struck down by the Supreme Court.

The New Deal’s agricultural policies also stagnated the small-scale farmers. It provided subsidies based on a farmer’s acreage and output, and as a result, mainly helped large-scale farmers with the most acreage and output. Poor sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and a large number of farmers who did not possess the necessary acreage or output were black. In this way, they were most affected by these negative ramifications. Generally, the victims of the New Deal were mostly socially vulnerable workers who had no choice but to be more flexible.

Considering these pieces of evidence, the author describes FDR as an ineffective strategist despite being a political genius (6). FDR’s political ability and charismatic personality inspired loyalty and pulled desperate Americans to him and his policies. However, the author points out that the “progressive” ideas that FDR embraced did not fail for lack of talent. New Dealer advisers included skilled attorneys who were trained at Harvard as well as other top-tier universities like Yale, Columbian and the University of Chicago, as well as some of America’s most successful business minds (3). However, as the author states, “FDR appeared to be utterly ignorant of economics “(5). He seemed to be willing to try practically anything as long as it involved more government control over the economy, and he did not realize those policies had been tried and failed in many other countries before (5). He assumed that individual rights, private property, and economic liberty were obstacles to recovery, but these were actually essential (266). The author summarized that the biggest reason why smart, well-educated, well-intentioned New Dealers prolonged the Great Depression was that “New Dealers were lawyers (270).” Many of them, including FDR, did not have any practical business experience.

The author concludes the book by pointing out lessons one can gain from the failure of the New Deal. These include the inherent problem with central banks, namely, that socialist economic planners and central banks could harm an entire country; the fact that it is crucial to cut taxes because taxes are some of the largest burdens faced by millions of people today; and lastly, the fact that public works and other welfare programs should be avoided because they increase the overall cost and burden of government while making it more difficult for the private sector to function (273). Powell also reminds the reader that trade restrictions must be phased out, so that both consumers and producers are free to choose the best, most economical suppliers wherever they might be (274), and the government must not enact laws preventing prices or wages from adjusting to circumstances (273). Therefore, though the New Deal was a failure as an economic policy, we can learn a great deal from this period of history regarding what should or can be done for both the economy and the general public to prosper.

Reaction to “FDR’s Folly”
The New Deal was a failure.” This is Powell’s most important assertion in this book. Though there were many criticisms and questions, there seems to be two main problems regarding FDR’s economic policy. First, Roosevelt was ignorant about the economy and the effects of a big-government. Second, Powell mentions that FDR was “not a thinker,” unlike Keynes, who suggested that big-government policies should be coupled with short-term budget deficits when the economy is in stagnation. The author, however, does not clearly separate these two elements of the New Deal from each other. There are two reasons for these. First, history does not designate which of these is more to blame. Secondly, it may be because those two factors are inseparable. FDR’s New Deal was based on big government policy, but he did not allow budget deficit. This resulted in his tepid approach toward big government economic policy.

In the New Deal, FDR’s biggest mistake was that “he aimed for ‘reform’, not recovery” (). He viewed business as the cause of the Great Depression, and he did everything he could to restrict business. Most of the criticisms regarding the failure of New Deal in this book are about FDR’s ignorance and the mishandling of economic policies. Many criticisms also point out the problems of a large government. However, is a large government appropriate for the United States in the present decade? Apart from of FDR’s ability as an economist, this essay will analyze the New Deal with respect to the structure of a large government.

As described in the book, the New Deal was a failure as an economic policy. It stagnated the economy by restricting business, needlessly controlling prices, propagating the high unemployment rate, and others. However, the other significance of the New Deal was not only its importance as an economic policy, but also its implications for a big government. The reason why FDR is considered as one of the great presidents, despite the failure of most of his policies, is that he was a genius as a politician. He was able to push the ideal of a big government that can save people from the Great Depression. His strong and friendly leadership was what people needed, and “big government” probably sounded comforting to Americans at that time. The failure of the New Deal, therefore, seems to tell us that a big government is ideologically attractive and politically effective, but practically too idealistic.

Tax increase is an excellent example. The government’s tax policies seem understandable, but not practically effective. When society does not have enough demand by itself, it is natural to think that the government should save that situation by collecting taxes. Keynes’ theory that the government should stimulate domestic economy through fiscal policy is persuasive, and a war, which led to a huge amount of government spending indeed proved his theory. However, even if the government could temporarily pull up demand curve with things like wars, government needs to invest money continuously to keep the demand high. In this case, rich government can afford to perform the policy, but governments usually need to collect a lot of money from people, which in turn decreases the people’s purchasing power, as seen in the Great Depression.

Moreover, government employment policy does help a very limited amount of people, but most people do not gain any profit from the employment policy. Those who did not gain anything from the policy just lose money from their pockets. In addition, the increase of flat taxes, such as liquor, tobacco, and gasoline tax, made it harder for lower income people to consume them. As a result, increase in tax, which aimed for stimulation of demand, resulted in a falling demand because of the decrease in purchasing power in most cases.

In addition, even if government spending has a high-minded purpose, government spending could not work as a perfect “visible hand”. It may be possible to help the poor by taxing on the rich, and creating more job opportunities, but perfectly-equal-minded government could not be born in this election system. A president and politician’s first consideration is, regardless of time, the next election. Personal connections between the government and business fields, and those between the government and various regions determine government spending. Also, people are not fully conscious of all the public spending, because it is everyone’s money, not one’s personal. If the government collects money in order to spend it on something, the government would not be as cautious and people would be more responsible with the spending as well. Hence, there is likely to be much waste in government spending, undermining its effectiveness. Therefore, equality of outcomes cannot be realized, although it may sound like a wonderful idea, especially to the poor people.

As mentioned above, economically big government always has high risk of damaging private sector and political corruption, or inequality. Minimizing its role, government should not meddle in the free market, and certainly should not be the biggest economical actor in the market. However, that does not mean that the small government is the best way of making a good society. In addition to economical system, there is one more important role which government should take part in: social security and welfare system.
As for social security and welfare system, small government could be problematic because it is impossible to give people “equality of opportunity”, as we cannot give people “equality of outcome”. In the states, a small number of rich people possess a large part of the national property, and large number of people live under bad living conditions. It is true that overprotecting might spoil people, making them feel unnecessary to work. Minimum protection such as providing education and medical care is, of course, important to maintain the liberty of the society. However, things such as pensions, which are not necessary to guarantee “equality of opportunity”, the government should not spend much money because giving too much pensions could spoil those who already have money to live, and sacrifice young people who need money for their lives. Except for the economic or social crisis which need political intervention, the government should stay outside of the money redistributing cycle, especially in naturally non-rich countries that don’t have much natural resources, but has large populations, as such is the case for the U.S. and Japan.

When re-evaluating the New Deal, the New Deal might have been a failure, but it might have been necessary as well. Powell says that failure of New Deal contributed to some of the political catastrophes of the 1930’s (267). He also mentions that “A faster, sustained business recovery might well have changed history for the better. Imagine how the dramatic success of a prosperous America, during the 1930s, would have undermined political support fro socialism, communism, and Nazism in other countries (268)”. However, this criticism sounds just an afterthought. Nobody knows what would have occurred if FDR did not conduct the New Deal, or followed a big government policy, and Powell does not actually present an alternative solution to the Great Depression. In emergency situations such as the worldwide Great Depression, Roosevelt’s economic policy, which in actuality did not result in a successful resolution, might have played a more important role in political history. Roosevelt’s strong charisma and his innovative leadership made people believe in the recovery of the economy, and people used that hope to survive through the temporary recession. In contrast to Hoover, who did not actively produce economic policies in spite of terrible economic situations, FDR provided a strong government to the people. Although it might not have been an effective economic policy, nothing could have been more symbolically effective for the situation in the United States at that time.

In the long pendulum of economic history, Roosevelt and Keynes insisted on government interference with regard to economical recovery. This is in direct contrast to Adam Smith’s Laissez-Faire policy. These two theories seem opposite, but they are based on these philosophers’ respective social backgrounds. In the late 18th Century, when the world was experiencing the Industrial Revolution, the government should have encouraged free market in order to stimulate the private sector, and in the early 20th Century, when imperialism and social problems are becoming problematic, people hoped that the government should pull economy back to the right direction. After decades, many economists such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman started to criticize Keynes’s big government theories, which faced massive fiscal debt. With the progress of conservatism, Regan promoted small government, supported by lasses-faire theories, and focused on supply-side economics. Although his policy to increase the saving rate ended in failure, his concept of “small-government” is popular even nowadays. It is this support for a free market and for minimal governmental interference in the economy that now spreads throughout the rest of the world.

In conclusion, the big government seemed appropriate in the early 20th century although the concept of big government itself was too idealistic because it ignored the nature of a government and its power. At the same time, it is also difficult to have small government, because the government might be forced to weaken their power in international society. In the 21st century, the world will incline to more and more conservative government, due to the failure of big government philosophy. In addition, not only governments but also other emerging international factors such as NGOs, international corporations, and international organizations are gaining more power in international society. Therefore, there seems to be a possibility to achieve real meaning of small government, and the divergence of power might be achieved.

Bibliography:
Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, New York Oxford Press, 1999.
Powell, Jim. FDR’S Folly. Three Rivers Press. New York, 2003.

(2)
Akinori Kumamoto (熊本晃順:3年生)
課題の本「Right-Wing Populism in America」

Through the class of American Culture, we looked at the dynamism of the ideological transformation from New Deal era in the mid 1930s to current Bush government, which means the movement from Liberalism in New Deal to Conservative and more to Neo Conservative (Neocon), through about these 50 years of American history. In this book, “Right-wing Populism in America” written by Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons, published in 2000, covers the history and the characteristics of populism in America at each age and stage. It also covers how these populism movements had interrelated with American politics and the policies of each government, and shows how important its role had played and how much deeply rooted in US politics. Every historical truth from this book gave us surprises and the points to consider when it comes to thinking about the US politics today, as well. After finishing the class, we all know that current President Bush’s conservative political attitude is not a temporary incident, but has a background of a long-term ideological transformation which started from Roosevelt’s New Deal. Populism has played an important role and related directly with this transformation. Therefore it is impossible to understand politics in the USA at any ages without having the sense of populism and knowing its historical aspects. Now, it needs to know what the populism is and its historical interrelation with US politics in order to precisely understand contemporary US politics and more try to figure out the problems of that.

First, begin with the summary of the book. This book is written really carefully not to lean either of ideological, political sides between liberalism and conservative. The authors place the focus mainly on the historical facts, and give the details of how those facts influenced the US politics and society. According to this book, it can be said that the populism movement has 7 stages; American Revolution, Civil War, World WarⅠ(WWⅠ), Depression and New Deal, World WarⅡ(WWⅡ), After WWⅡto Cold War and After Cold War. They examine the populism movement in this order and firstly start with the American Revolution era.

In this era, some people as leaders of the groups of free workers and small farmers, rose in rebellions to public offices and landowners. They aimed at improving their work conditions, offending at the monopolizing the trades and asking for the protection from the attacks of native Indians. They thought themselves as an “outsider” of the society and “resented [those who had] the dominance and special privileges (Berlet and Lyons 21).” That is, those groups of the rebellion had the grievances against the elite-class people who were ruling the society all by themselves. The people in the rebellions did not have any chances to take part in the politics. The right for voting was only allowed privileged class people only. Those distinctions depending only on the income and social classes caused the rebellion. As well as this distinction between the social classes, another distinction was created in this era, which was racial distinction between White supremacy and Black. Black people were under the terrible labor condition as slaves. They were supposed to be lower than any other white social classes and “subordinate to the society (32).” Then, white people started attacking on those enslaved black people who rose in rebellions asking for better labor condition and finally aiming at freedom, as a scapegoating enemy, which is one of the most characteristic methods the populist would take. White people tried to put those Black people away from the society blaming that it was those black people that brought the high-income to partial privileged elites and that made lower-class stay lower. Thus, it can be said that the beginning of populism was closely related to anti-elitism and racism, not to political ideology (21).

Next is the Civil war era. The Characteristic of this term was its increasing number of immigrants, especially from Irish (33). Then the society had faced the confusion because of the religious difference between Protestants and Catholics. Most of immigrants of this age including Irish were Catholic. White native-born Protestants took the nativism strategy against this. They showed the anti-Catholicism attitude toward the immigrants and tried to reduce their citizenship rights. This time another factor had played an important role, which was evangelical Protestantism. They had strong ties to this anti-Catholicism movement. At the same time nativist also “promoted a broad range of social reforms, from free public services to workers’ cooperatives to expand rights for women and people of color (33).” There was again scapegoating happening here. White people were targeting those immigrants and attacking them as a new scapegoat so that more privileges and rights for voting could be given to all classes of white men. Not only sis they target immigrants, but they also target the elite-class as well, especially they attacked on Freemasonry which was a large group of the elite-class people having ruled and governed their society. By attacking Freemasonry, they as an Antimasonic movement “helped call attention to political and social inequalities in the US society (40).” Though middle and low class people had not got the entire equality of taking part in the politics, this movement made people aware of at least the necessity of political equality and attention to the politics.

Then world had faced the first world-wide war, which was WWⅠ. Before this time, far-extremist populism movement had begun. That was Ku Klux Klan. They had started its racism-based exclusion since after Civil War, and had been continually an active group which targeted and assaulted Black people. Klan members also targeted those who supported the free right movement between any races as an anti-racist even though they were white people (59). During WWⅠ, US nation had paid attention to the politics and how the war was going. Depending on this, the media had increased its power and made it enable to spread the news and information in all around the country (Taggart 27). According to this, people, meaning white-protestants, paid much more attention to war and gradually were in patriot mood as a whole country. This simultaneously caused more anti-Catholicism and anti-immigrants movement. Around this time, Chinese people increasingly immigrated into US society and unfortunately they became a new scapegoating target.

During and after WWⅠ, the US society had faced the one of the most threatening menace they had ever met; Russian revolution and communism. That was the start of the threat of communism which US society had kept fighting later 70 years. This historical incident had changed the US populism movement as well. Their targets were shifted from people of color, immigrants and non-protestants to reds which mean communists, namely, from social, biological and cultural targets to political enemies. Then, people, especially politics, were distinguished by their political ideology the left or the right. That was called “Red Scare (Berlet and Lyons 87).” The US society, to deal with this threat, repressed and cracked down the upheaval of leftist movement and applied one populism method, which was demonization. Then anti-leftist populism had arisen within the country, and as in the Civil War era, previous populism against people of color, immigrants and non-Protestants had also arisen. The authors examine this reason that many white people feared the communist as well as people of black and catholic immigrants as cultural outsiders and potential revolutionaries. Therefore demonization of reds spontaneously had a close couple with demonization of immigrants and people pf color (86-87).

During and after Great Depression, New Deal and to WWⅡ, populism movement consistently had been attacking the leftist. This attack could be seen until the end of the Cold War era. Those populist groups and parties like the Ku Klux Klan in this time inclined to Europe fascist ideology, which was considered as ultraconservative (131). Therefore, Roosevelt’s New Deal, which had a Left ideology, was completely not welcomed for those conservative groups. During New Deal, as we looked in the class, President Roosevelt admitted some rights and arranged insurances for labor unions in order to improve labor conditions and productivity. Those “labor unions were all active in antifascist campaign (151).” Here is an interesting examination in this book and Mr. Nagai Toshiya’s article; in this time from New Deal to WWⅡ, as a populism method of scapegoating, Asian immigrants including Japanese were mostly attacked by both the right and the left groups (155). That is to say, the right attacked them because of the racial-based ideology, and the left attacked them as an enemy of the war. We’ve learned that war is the best way to make the business improve better. President Roosevelt took this way to attack Japan as an enemy so that US business could improve better than New Deal did (Nagai). It shows that how populist method had such influences on US politics that that was applied to such a big political decision.

After the end of WWⅡ, America soon had plunged into the Cold War era. The main issue having argued in US was of course a battle against communism. At this era, those strong populism-based hard right group were founded; The John Birch Society (JBS) and The Liberty Lobby (LL). JBS, as an ultraconservative, had claimed “One World Government (179)” to show America as the strongest power country to the world. On the other hand, LL had advocated more like a “neo fascist organization (187),” which means “the theme of racial nationalism as a type of apartheid fascism (189)” aiming at a racially separated nation state world. Both could be seen as extremist ideologies against communism in the Cold War. Later the end of the Cold War brought collapses on those two populist groups. However, the right movement in the late 1970s “adopted many themes from the Birch Society and subsequently became a major source of conspiracist narrative during the 1980s and 1990s (198).”

One more thing to note here, when thinking about after-WWⅡ populism, is its shift to the religious and cultural tendencies mainly focusing on right-wing evangelical Christians and anti-gay rights movement. These two tendencies were closely interrelated because the primary reason of the negative and denial attitude toward giving equal rights to the homosexual people came from the fundamental belief of evangelical Christians. In these decades, “there was a growing persons self-identifying as evangelical in the general population (230).” Their primary concerns was about “defending family values (231).” They gave us some threats like feminism, homosexuality, abortion, divorce and so on. They thought those threats would collapse the family values. The argument of giving the equal right to every person no matter who he/she is had been long-discussed since 18th century (Taggart 36). The evangelical Christians thought it as a moral corruption being based on the literal understanding of the Bible. The Right-wing evangelicals tended to attribute this corruption to the liberal society and liberal government policies. Then they took the right side ideology against that anti-Christian ideology. The President Clinton was denounced by those right-wing evangelicals even though he was not as liberal as Roosevelt and any others from Democratic Party, but he had denounced the radical homophobia agenda and tried to stop the bill about abolition (305).
Now as we saw in the class, President Bush has big influences from those right-wing evangelical Christians and his neo-con supporters. The US politics is on the most conservative edge ever than before. When looking at its background, we will see the close interrelation between politics and right-wing populism movement at each era.

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