Why do I snark at the right but not at the left? The answer is simple, but important. There is a fundamental difference between the connections and commitments of the people who are appointed to senior positions in an Administration as economic advisers or policy makers, and the follies and stupidities of the current brood of rightwingers. This is elementary, but it is useful to keep it in mind.
We live in a capitalist state. The fundamental purpose and object of the state in a capitalist economy is to serve the interests of capital. The state is, indeed, the executive committee of the capitalist class. This is true under Democratic Administrations, and under Republican Administrations. It is true when the policies of the Administration are progressive, and when the policies of the Administration are reactionary. I was born in the year that Franklin Delano Roosevelt first took the oath of office, and what I have just said has been true of every Administration from his to Obama's [as well as of previous Administrations, but I wasn't alive then.] You may dislike that fact. I do. You may want to see America fundamentally transformed so that it is no longer true. I do, and have written about that for fifty years. But viewed with a certain detachment and from a certain distance, it makes very little difference to the fundamental capitalist orientation of the government whether the President's economic advisers come from the manufacturing sector, from the financial sector, or from the tenured ranks of America's elite universities. I feel no impulse to call attention to the Goldman Sachs affiliations of a new Administration appointment because to do so is, by implication, to suggest that Administration policy would be importantly different were the President to tap a different source of advisers.
I snark at Republican wingnuts for two reasons. First, it is fun, and these days there is little enough to laugh about. Second, for reasons I have already stated on this blog, I think it makes a difference, within the confines of the capitalist orientation of the state, whether Democrats or Republicans have the upper hand in Congress. A Democratic sweep unseen since the days of FDR would not change the fact that the state serves the interests of capital, not even in Dennis Kucinich were to become Speaker of the House. But it would make possible certain ameliorations that would ease the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable among us.
There are some who imagine that Democratic electoral victories are actually a setback to the cause of revolutionary change because only if things get much worse will they get much better. I do not share that view. I lived through the aftermath of the transformation of Weimer Germany into Nazi Germany, so I am not sanguine about the revolutionizing potential of misery.
