Leftist or Liberal?

Where Do You Fit?

William Sundwick

Modern liberalism goes back a long way. Let’s start with John Locke in the 17^th century. He came up with the idea that governments exist to serve the needs of the people. Obvious to us now, but directly opposed to the divine right of monarchs. He was influential even in his own lifetime.  The Glorious Revolution of 1688,  establishing the supremacy of Parliament, was a Lockian idea.

All contemporary democracies are fundamentally liberal structures. The tension with the authoritarian right visible today in the United States and Europe has more to do with anxiety about who should be part of the polity than what that polity should provide its members.

In the 19^th century, tensions emerged with the first industrial revolution. Karl Marx became the icon for those who saw politics as a conflict of power wielded by the owners of capital over those who produce their wealth (workers). That was then. Now, anticipating a “fourth industrial revolution,” it is becoming clear that wealth tends to perpetuate itself – it doesn’t really depend on workers at all! Workers have lost most of the power gained over 200 years of struggle and liberal governance.

Economic prospects seem bleak for all who aren’t plugged into the capitalist wealth machine (mostly residing on Wall Street). It’s the current version of Marx’s alienation of labor. Yet, we’re loathe to divorce ourselves completely from the ideas of freedom and social contract in that very old liberal tradition. The liberal solution to the problem of alienation is based on disincentives for “excessive” accumulation of capital. Primarily, redistribution of wealth via taxation. Real leftists reject this solution as not going far enough to redress the imbalance of political power. And, political power is more than mere economic resources – it’s cultural. Liberals retort that leftists are guilty of “class reductionism.” Liberal societies, after all, allow for social mobility, right?

Class is the focus for the Left in the 21^st century more than wealth -- leave wealth to the liberals, they say. Yes, money is a common denominator in acquisition of political power (especially in the U.S.), but what the Left wants is a reversal of the dynamic behind ascendance of “elites.” Liberals may choose to make everybody happy with more money (Universal Basic Income is the current hot topic in liberal, and neoliberal, circles), but Real Leftists want to throw out the “money people” (Wall Street) from government altogether, feeling that an entirely different class should be in charge. Paradoxically, in the U.S., Donald Trump was supposed to be the kind of person the working class could get behind. Except, of course, he is the bastard child of Wall Street to begin with. Could a Bernie Sanders be the best answer? It’s populism, whether left or right.

Liberals generally counter populism with attempts at making everybody’s life more comfortable. It’s not about power, but comfort. If you give people enough stuff, maybe they’ll go away. Pitchforks come from more than discomfort, says the Left.

If the real contest in democracies is between classes and how much influence they can wield in government, then we should explore what defines these classes – the ins versus the outs. While it sometimes seems that multi-party parliamentary systems have more flexibility in accommodating class struggle, American political history also provides examples of realignments of the two major parties over time.

The Democratic Party of today is a strange (by historic standards) coalition of apparently divergent class interests – Wall Street capitalists find common cause there with communities of color and others who define themselves as marginalized, and with the well-educated minority of the population seeking to protect their privilege. The Republican Party seems to consist of a combination of “self-made” (allegedly) capitalists and culturally conservative religious communities, provincial rather than cosmopolitan in outlook (“people like me” versus “the other”). This bipolar party structure leaves those with strong left-wing convictions no home. It’s usually a story of compromise for American leftists – how much can they stomach to call themselves a Democrat?

So, what do American “leftists” believe? They despise liberals as much as the right-wingers in the Republican Party do. Yet they understand the economic structure of society to be based on exploitation of the labor of people like them. They no longer believe they can achieve “the American Dream” of one day becoming a successful capitalist themselves, probably not even their children. Privilege is so baked into the “elite” classes, who mobilize to protect it, that extraordinary political means are necessary to change it. They don’t want crumbs from the liberal establishment – they want power! How do they plan to seize it?

I have not met a single American Bolshevik – people who believe in a Dictatorship of the Proletariat.  If there ever were such animals, they probably all died out, or were co-opted, sometime around mid-century, during that unprecedented postwar prosperity with high participation of organized labor. Racial identifications with the Left persisted into the 1970s. But co-optation, and intimidation via police violence, mostly put an end to that. Women and young people? We’ve seen some organizing success with women recently (#MeToo movement), but young people will likely be co-opted by forgiveness of student loan debt – and higher starting salaries. That remains to be seen.

Anybody still committed to the Left imagines using social media to mobilize large numbers of people behind left-wing political candidates – and, doing it fast enough to save the planet from ecocide. The media message is crucial, but the goal is to ultimately seize victory through the ballot box. They expect great resistance here, however. Voter suppression and gerrymandering of legislative districts present real threats. And the judicial branch of government appears less friendly with each passing year. But seizing power democratically has long been the hallmark of Democratic Socialists and social democrats alike – the latter not necessarily committed to eliminating capitalism, anyway, hence of questionable “leftist” credentials.

Despite all the sniping at the “Democratic establishment” and resentment of “academic elites,” there remains a basic respect for democracy among the American Left – they have bought into the fundamental liberalism of the last three centuries. My bias here tells me that the liberal project is working. The differences between leftist and liberal will lead to a synthesis: a “Left-liberal” or “Liberal Socialist.” More leftists will be co-opted into the elites, convincing others that, given more attainable education, they too can become part of the governing elite.

The only ones left behind will be those who choose entrenched community traditions over current economic/political reality: otherwise known as conservatives. Looking inward and backward always succumbs to looking outward and forward. 

“I Prefer Not To”

Bartleby and Late Stage Capitalism

William Sundwick

Herman Melville published his short story “Bartleby the Scrivener -- a Tale of Wall Street” in 1853. It has been a staple of high school AP English classes and undergrad American Lit survey courses for at least sixty of those 160+ years.

I last read it as a college sophomore in such a class. That was more than 50 years ago. Something made me want to revisit Bartleby recently. It was probably that resonating statement of freedom that is the iconic Bartleby quote: “I prefer not to.” While there are endless life situations where one might think of Bartleby and his resistance, the one that comes to mind today is the movement of (mostly) young people to resist the dominance of capitalism in every aspect of their lives. Incur crushing student debt, says Wall Street, “I prefer not to” say many young people. Accept medical bankruptcy if you incur a serious health condition, “I prefer not to” say many with inadequate insurance coverage. Vote for the candidates we select for you, “I prefer not to” said many in 2016.

As a short story, Bartleby’s structure is perfect. There is a protagonist (the narrator, a successful corporate lawyer with Wall Street office), a symbolic foil (Bartleby himself, I maintain) and three secondary characters who are Bartleby’s coworkers in the narrator’s law office. There is setup – the narrator is hiring another scrivener (copyist, in the age before typewriters or copying machines); plot development -- tension between Bartleby and narrator over work requirements; climax – where narrator is forced to move his office to escape Bartleby; denouement -- Bartleby’s ultimate death -- and conclusion, where the narrator tells us what he learned of Bartleby’s past (not previously revealed).

Although industrious in his copying, any further request from narrator/employer to do anything special or perform any service outside his standard routine is always met with some variation on Bartleby’s classic line, “I prefer not to.” The narrator does not fire Bartleby, although he is sorely tempted to, due primarily to his own sense of charity and fairness.  The virtue-signaling narrator is an inveterate liberal. His employees, Bartleby included, are prisoners in cubicles (called “screens” in mid-19^th century office layouts) but he is convinced that he has their best interests at heart, so long as it doesn’t interfere too much with his easy life.

The reader asks as the story progresses: “Why doesn’t he fire Bartleby?” The answer becomes clearer as you continue to read. It is a paradox – the nut of the story. Therein lies the best modern interpretation for a timeless work of literature. Bartleby’s alienation increases:

   

“The next day ... Bartleby did nothing but stand at his window in his dead-wall revery”. 

Bartleby, unlike his three coworkers, appears not to want to socialize, but only to stare “in revery” out a small window overlooking nothing more than the “black brick wall” next door. Both narrator and coworkers become more aware of Bartleby’s disturbed state-of-mind. Coworkers tend to make fun of him, the narrator pities him. Bartleby, you see, is homeless. He eats and sleeps in the office with a blanket “rolled up under his desk,” on an old sofa. He is alone. No family. No friends. He prefers it not be this way but is powerless to change it. Very sad.

“It was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach.” 

Bartleby does have a profound effect on the narrator. His occupation of the office begins to drive the narrator to distraction. Yet, this employer persists in doing what seems humane and continuously tries to reason with Bartleby. One critic, shortly after Occupy Wall Street and Zucotti Park, wrote that the OWS movement was inspired by Bartleby, using the occupy trope as their symbolic resistance to capitalism. This was, indeed, Bartleby’s strategy. Bartleby was a resistor. The narrator could do nothing about him, except try to accommodate him. He failed in this objective.

In exasperation, the narrator is forced to move his office to a new address. This leaves Bartleby continuing to occupy the building even with its new tenants. He sits on the bannister of the entrance foyer – having no “screen” any more in the office. He cannot be removed. The new tenants, fellow professionals known to the narrator, implore him to try harder to remove Bartleby. The narrator tries, weakly, but is inclined to wash his hands of the entire matter – to abandon labor. Among other things, he is afraid of what the “papers” will say. Ultimately left at the mercy of the less liberal new tenants, Bartleby is sent to the Tombs as a vagrant.

“Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.”

Bartleby dies in the Tombs, presumably of starvation – he “prefers” not to eat. This, despite the “Grub-man” receiving a bribe from our narrator to provide Bartleby with better food. Liberal amelioration of conditions fails. Resistance overcomes it. Resistance unto death – it was a hunger strike.

We learn in the conclusion of the story that Bartleby came with a history of working in the “dead letter office” in Washington. He was let go in a “change of administration” (before civil service). There he sorted undeliverable letters, often to dead people, for burning. The narrator attributes Bartleby’s “cadaverous” demeanor to that sorrowful previous job.

The timelessness of Bartleby comes from the myriad symbols and interpretations given to the story. Its language is plain for the time yet encompasses much of the human condition – Bartleby’s ghostly presence, the narrator’s sense of charity, his reluctance to confront social approbation, the question of responsibility for Bartleby, and Bartleby’s alienation from his labor. All these themes are valid, and they point to the inexorable dominance of an employer (owner) over employees (workers), and how those workers can force change by simply stating their “preference” and refusing to move – “occupying” the workplace. The General Motors sit-down strikes of the 1930s come to mind, the birth of American industrial unions.

I found no evidence that Melville was aware of his German contemporaries, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but there is some evidence to support the reverse (especially Engels from his time in England?) – the soul-crushing job of the scrivener has since been replaced by machines, as it was in the English textile mills of Engels. Bartleby is alienated from his labor, even as he is impelled to repeat it daily. He insists he “prefers not to” do any additional tasks for his capitalist employer. Alienation is clearly an important theme of the story, as with 20^th century existentialist literature. Melville was not a Marxist, but perhaps Marx and Engels had some American literary inspiration?

The closing line of the story is -- “Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!” 

The Homestead: Next Ten Years

William Sundwick

We’ve been here 35 years, among the old-timers now in our Arlington neighborhood. The house began as a simple center-hall colonial, built in 1947, but grew with our family. Two boys went from birth through high school graduation in this house. Both returned for customary “back-with-parents- after-college” periods in their lives. We didn’t become confirmed empty-nesters until about 2014. I retired the following year. My wife has not taken that plunge yet – she still commutes daily between the house and Capitol Hill.

While there is no official timetable, it seems appropriate to begin speculating on how much longer we’ll be comfortable remaining in our now apparently too-large home. The assumption is that at some point, downsizing will be advisable.

But, the usual reasons for downsizing have not settled in for either my wife or me – yet. We can still both negotiate the stairs easily for all three floors. We enjoy the space, the copious storage (especially, empty bedrooms), kitchen and dining room big enough for our friends and family to gather. And, neither of us foresees a reason why this will change in the near-term.

My wife anticipates her second knee replacement will mean a temporary disability for her, as did her first, “I’ll have to live on one floor for a while.” But I can handle the nursing, fetching, and driving. My own physical health remains astoundingly good for my 72 years.

It looks like plans for improvements, once again, have higher priority than plans to move. This happened twice before, when expansion of living space was the driver. This time, it’s enhancement and beautification of living space and outdoor environment that captures our imaginations.

The next ten years should see both a remodeled basement and reconfigured landscaping. In addition, some details too small to be considered “projects,” like replacement of broken bathroom fixtures (a robe hook) and upgrades to technology (new computers) need resolution soon.  Procrastination is a bad habit for me, as my wife keeps reminding me, “When are you going to replace that robe hook?” A ten-year plan shouldn’t mean that we wait for nine years, then try to do it all!

Improvements generally have their greatest payoff when you get to enjoy them, not simply for increasing resale value. We learned with our previous construction that Zillow, at least, doesn’t support the Cost/Benefit ratio of either of those additions. My wife says, “You know, we’ll never get our money out of it!” Now inured to that real estate fact of life, our final round of improvements will focus on our own ability to appreciate them while we’re still living in the house. Our Arlington privilege makes us feel that we wouldn’t be able to sell unless we address the two major projects – basement and landscaping. “Everybody” in our neighborhood has beautiful homes. Logically, we should do basement first, then yard and plantings.

Basement enhancement

We intend to keep the same footprint for the basement – no new foundation. We now have three rooms and bath under the original 1947 house (crawl spaces for our two additions).

One of these rooms is dedicated to laundry and HVAC installation. Another was originally intended as a bedroom (pre-code renovation, no egress), with nice built-in closet space. The third room, with bath, serves as my wife’s office, but functioned as a family room (“playroom”) when our kids were young. There is pantry storage under the stairs and very cheap paneling from Home Depot throughout (we re-paneled the family room shortly after we moved in, with my father-in-law’s help). And, there is an equally passé drop-ceiling with probable asbestos tiles. A fine home like ours, in a neighborhood like this, surely requires an updated basement living space.

It all needs to go. The bathroom will be reconfigured as a larger powder room (minus shower stall). The laundry/HVAC room and ersatz bedroom will be combined into one large open space, while retaining built-in closets. This should allow minor relocation of HVAC unit for more efficient ducting design, counter space for laundry, and moving the refrigerator-freezer from its semi-accessible location in the small laundry room. Being able to fully open the fridge doors would be a real boon -- that’s where I keep my beer!

A newer, more attractive, family room/office will feature recessed lighting and drywall, and egress window in front -- some excavation will be required here, sacrificing our dead compacta holly bushes which now occupy the space in front of the window well. It should contain a play area for grandkids, with juvenile furniture, as well as desk and computer equipment for wife’s office. “I like it here,” she says. We’ll probably get a futon to replace the broken sofa-bed and TV will remain in place. This is our plan. We made drawings and invited one contractor to give us an estimate. It was high. We stopped, but now it’s time to proceed where we left off.

Landscaping renewal

After we finished work on our second addition (2009), incorporating a large kitchen with master suite above it, more or less swallowing up our backyard, we hired a local landscaping company to give us a usable hardscape patio and walkway from our new addition around to the driveway. Plantings front and rear, and river-stone-filled driveway median completed the plan.

The backyard, especially, was a beautiful, compact, outdoor space with photinia, vibernum, skip laurel, inkberry holly, and azaleas. Liriope ground cover for the beds, and a relatively small lawn. It was nice for about seven years. Then, things started going south. Now, there is no ground cover, virtually no lawn, overgrown photinia and scrawny, but tall, vibernum, dead inkberries and azaleas. Moss grows in the cracks of the hardscape patio. We never use our backyard furniture anymore.

Would a pruning routine, as vigorous as lawn maintenance and weeding, have made a difference?

Perhaps, but there’s a limit to how much time I’m willing to spend simply for external appearance – even in my neighborhood.

In any case, it all needs to be replaced. No plan yet, and I’m ready to search for another landscaper. My original company, although presenting an attractive picture at first, has not been very helpful with maintenance. “It’s much too expensive,” says he. I’m apparently on my own for replacing dead plants.

A realistic ten-year plan will likely be:

1)      engage contractors for the two big projects

2)      continue to close off unused rooms (if climate control costs don’t explode), and:

3)      optimize our large front yard for appearance only – although a usable backyard might be nice.

The little things I should get to right away – of course! Robe hook, new computers; yeah, yeah …

  

Mira and Her Big Brother

Grandchildren in the World

William Sundwick

When they first come into the world, they have no idea what’s in store for them. And it will be a long time before they have much influence over it.

They do, however, influence us, their elders – parents and grandparents. We love them, nurture them, are entertained by them. We raise our offspring in a spirit of optimism. They force it upon us.

Grandchildren, perhaps, even more than the immediately present and demanding children, suffuse that spirit. We must make it good for them for, surely, we have the power!

I have two grandchildren (so far). They are almost four and about 13 months. Big brother Owen is bemused by his baby sister Mira, but his primary concern seems to be to keep her from messing with his creations and toys. She is surprisingly mobile – and curious. He mainly seeks peace.

They both are driven by achievement. Mira is now taking her first steps.

She is tall, can pull herself up on most pieces of furniture in her house and her grandparents’ house. Yes, even walk without holding on. This presents an increasing threat to Owen – whose own achievement motivations require imagination, role playing, and manual dexterity. And he is aware of knowledge – he tells us as much when he says: “I’m almost four, I know lots.” He appears to be contrasting his mammoth achievement portfolio to his baby sister’s trivial level of development.

They each have their own communication styles: Mira by smiling, grasping, pointing, vocalizing (not quite words yet); Owen by his politeness (“Excuse Me!” when he wants to talk) and questions (“Why?” is the eternal question). Both seem to have an urge to share – stories, experiences, objects, food – and both seem to crave attention from adults, including their grandparents! “Play with me, grandpa!” commands Owen, and outstretched arms from Mira indicate she wants to be removed from her highchair.

As grandparents not charged with primary care for these two, we have the best of both worlds. We see them and interact regularly, but then can always send them home with their parents. We welcome them at our house, providing accommodations like training potties, highchairs, car seats, step stools, as the need arises. Plenty of books and toys at our place, too. When we babysit at their house evenings, we’ve learned to nail the bedtime routine for both – as well as feeding them dinner (and playing together). But we’re never required to spend more than a few hours devoted to their care. This is good for septuagenarians.

Even such relatively short stretches, however, remind me of the sense of foreboding we all share these days. That commitment to optimism is being increasingly challenged. What sort of world will they inherit? How much of their future misfortune will be our fault? In extreme cases, it appears that some are foregoing having children altogether. Has guilt and fear consumed them to such an extent?

It’s clear that much of Mira and Owen’s education will be focused on dealing with their own uncertain futures. What will they now need to learn? Instead of success tools, it seems they will be learning mostly survival tools! Even their parents – what will they have to look forward to in their own retirement? Will they even have a retirement? Will lifespans increase, or drastically contract? What about economic resources? Will my two grandchildren grow up conditioned to expect less? It seems the moral choice for them would be … absolutely, yes! Nobody should be allowed to have as much in their future lives as their parents had (or their grandparents). At least, that’s the way it looks from the privileged positions we find ourselves in today.

Perhaps the secret for us grandparents is to spend even more time in direct contact with our grandchildren. Then, we wouldn’t have time to think too hard about these questions. Their wonder at the world – at their own bodies, minds, and capabilities -- might consume us as much as it does them. We might discover some of their innocence. Optimism may then begin to climb out of that pit of anxiety and pessimism.