Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A Gathering Storm

2018; Duke University Press; Volume: 15; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/15476715-7127310

1558-1454

Bill Fletcher,

Political and Economic history of UK and US

Kim Phillips-Fein did an exceptional job describing and analyzing the process through which a slow-moving neoliberal revolution overtook New York City in the 1970s and early 1980s. The book helps us understand one of the three key developments in the 1970s that laid the foundation for neoliberal capitalism to become a hegemonic system of accumulation to this day. The other two developments were (1) the 1973 Chilean coup, after which the economics team of Milton Friedman went to work remaking the Chilean system, and (2) the emergence of Margaret Thatcher in Britain.There are six points that struck me about the book along with three areas of concern. I will enumerate them.First, the crisis developed slowly. In fact, one can argue that the crisis started in the 1930s with the increasing dependency of the city on outside sources for funding, including the state and federal governments. The growing debt by the city masked the changes that were underway in the economic and demographic base of the city.Second, the crisis must be understood within the larger context of changes underway in major metropolitan areas. Beginning in the 1950s automation and suburbanization were transforming cities. In some cases cities evolved in the direction of dead zones as the tax base evaporated. The growth of the highway system, cheap fuel, and the auto industry all made the relocation of large numbers of whites possible. This, along with racial segregation, meant that the cities retained people of color who were unable to move.In addition, during the later 1960s, a section of capital that came to be known as “FIRE” (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) became the dominant wing in major metropolitan areas. They had a different vision of the metro areas that included the eventual racial and class cleansing of the cities, along with the removal of manufacturing and its replacement with their respective industries.Third, the development of economic strategy by capital was neither linear nor consistent, but rather analogous to a bumper car in an amusement park. There were steps taken by capital in panic, others were taken with forethought, some were experimental, and others were driven by specific political and/or sectoral pressures. Ideas and practices clashed and had an impact on other ideas and practices. One cannot assume that there was a master plan from the beginning, though there were clearly certain forces that had constructed their own vision for the city.Fourth, there was a lack of unified resistance on the part of popular forces. This was a point emphasized toward the end of the book. There were numerous examples of resistance but what was missing was a combination of unified coordination and a countervision or counternarrative. As a result, there were many individual battles in which popular forces won—sometimes short-term; other times, long-term—but the drive toward what came to be known as neoliberalism was not halted. This is an invaluable lesson for today’s struggles against both neoliberal authoritarianism and right-wing populism.Fifth, race was of central importance to advancing neoliberalism. The political Right has proven that they can advance the most regressive of directions if/when they describe them in terms of targeting “unworthy” people of color and/or workers of color. If, for instance, a specific agency is targeted for destruction, the best thing for the Right to do is to make it appear that that agency disproportionately employs and/ or benefits people of color. By taking this tack, the Right is often able to win support for efforts that run against the interests of the average white working person.Sixth, cities face challenges when conservative Republicans, largely from rural areas, control state legislatures. There have always been tensions between rural and urban areas. What has become more evident, however, is that conservative Republican control of state legislatures—often via gerrymandering—leads to the strangulation of major metropolitan areas, including through the restriction on the right of local taxation. The attacks on progressive mayors, such as the late Coleman Young of Detroit, by state legislatures demonstrated what the Greek/French Marxist Nicos Poulantzas noted in his final book, State, Power, Socialism: power is fluid. No institution eternally retains the same power under capitalism. Depending on the balance of political forces, an institution won by popular forces can, almost magically, lose the power that it has traditionally held. This has become clear in cities where, particularly with the rise of black mayors, they suddenly become beholden to state legislatures. These issues were some of the key issues/lessons that emerged for me in reading Fear City.The book also raised some concerns. These include the following:I despaired. The book was SO powerful in its narrative. In part due to its power, I found myself frustrated by the outcome of events. This is not a criticism of the book, however. It speaks more to the overwhelming power of capital and the scattered state and organization of the popular forces.What were the options? This is probably the most critical question that arose for me in reading the book. Confronted with the reality of the early 1970s, what could liberals and progressives have done differently? Was there an alternative or was the outcome inevitable? Phillips-Fein hints at the possibility of alternatives but does not spend much time on that.A possible alternative: Fear City led me to wonder whether there were three general directions that could have been considered at the time, though none of them guaranteed success. For instance:Alternative economic development strategies. What struck me in reading the book is that liberal and progressive forces were fighting a rear-guard action throughout this entire period. They were defending what existed but they did not articulate an alternative approach toward the crisis. Given what was happening to NYC, were there other industries that could have been encouraged to move into town? Were there other approaches toward raising the tax base? Could there have been a different approach toward disaster zones—for example, the South Bronx—including new methods of housing development? Could the city have utilized eminent domain in the service of economic development?Bankruptcy. What if that had happened? Clearly there was fear about the impact on collective bargaining agreements. But what might have been other pros and cons to letting the city go bankrupt? Could the city have put the question before the citizens, asking them, in the form of a referendum, their views on such a question?A multicity united front. The issues that faced NYC, including but not limited to taxation, affected other cities within New York State. The city of Buffalo, for instance, faced so-called deindustrialization and demographic changes. Thus, could several cities have joined together to advance an agenda insisting that the state address these and other concerns? Would this have been a viable means of turning the tables on the anti–New York City sentiment that existed/exists in much of the state?Fear City, therefore, is not simply an examination of a historical moment. It provides a framework for understanding the growth and spread of neoliberalism, but it is equally a cautionary tale. The significant reforms that were won by working people in New York City were never guaranteed in perpetuity. Their existence and, indeed, expansion, depended on a combination of ongoing progressive struggle and economic development strategies that could lay the foundation for their continuation. A reliance on unpredictable funding and debt was always a recipe for disaster. Yet it was the sense that there was little that could be done to stop the mammoth train of neoliberalism—a train portrayed as riding to the rescue of a city facing disaster—that fundamentally undermined what might have been a massive urban movement of resistance and renewal.