STIRLING'S SILVER
"Whether or not a verdict of guilty would have been appropriate in a court of law for 'the crime of 1873,' that verdict is appropriate in the court of history. . . . The rhetoric was overheated, but the importance of the issue was not overstated. The act of 1873 cast the die for the gold standard . . . While the conventional view is Laughlin's, that 'the act of 1873 was a piece of good fortune,' my own view is that it was the opposite--a mistake that had highly adverse consequences." -- Milton Friedman, Money Mischief.
My friend Stirling wants to lobotomize populism. Populism is passionate but dumb, so we need to harness the emotion to something else. What could that be?
In a very long post there are few clues. One I found is a reference to populist delusions about free silver, and later on a mention of "hard money." Populist interest in monetary policy is often dismissed as the delusions of cranks. From free silver to Fed-bashing, there is supposed to be something nutty, if not unwholesome. Attacks on bankers are fraught with anti-semitic overtones. The arcane complexity of monetary economics is beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. As Rumsfeld would say, you just don't understand.
Well I'm sorry. To quote a Teamster official, I'm as Jewish as any Jew who ever lived, and I don't have to like bankers or Allen Greenspan. More specifically, I don't like monetary restraint that prioritizes fighting inflation over full employment. (We have full employment by the current unemployment rate, but not by the employment/population rate.)
Underlying the criticism of the gold standard then and the Fed now is the same concern -- an inelastic money supply contracting real economic activity. For farmers of the 19th century, their entire livelihood and wealth was at stake. Today it's jobs and wages.
I open with the Friedman quote to attest to the fact that advocacy of silver could have been wrong, but it was not nutty because nobody thinks Milton Friedman was nutty about monetary economics.
One may choose to dwell on the tragic arc of populist political decline, or one may note as Stirling does its huge impact on public policy, or at the very least its anticipation of many features of subsequent U.S. political economy. The decline means nothing more than the truism that good economic policy -- in the interest of the working class -- is hard work.
Ronald Reagan was once a liberal, but no sane person indicts liberalism on that account. The neocons are ex-liberals. Bill and Hillary are ex-liberals. Should we make that a commentary on liberalism? It's hard out here for a liberal.
But there is more than one kind of liberal. One kind is like John Kerry, who during his campaign noted that it is his practice to decline to comment on the depredations of the Federal Reserve. Beyond opposition to the Iraqi affair, with Stirling and the whole Kos mishpocha, it's not clear what kind of liberalism we're talking about.
Just as the Devil's supreme accomplishment is persuading people he doesn't exist, so our rulers' supreme goal is convincing the public that populism is about all kinds of things except what it really was, and is: economic inequality stemming from the anti-democratic domination of moneyed elites.
The bow-tie is a dead giveaway.
Give it up, Max. We're a rentier economy. The only thing easy money produces is asset bubbles. And we all know who benefits from asset bubbles.
November 21, 2006 8:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
We've had low interest rates for some time now. It seems a bit of an odd moment in the game to make it a rallying cry for liberalism.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
November 21, 2006 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
...monied, intellectual, cultural, technocratic. military, elites.
"The bow-tie is a dead giveaway."
damn right.
November 21, 2006 9:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just what I love--ad hominem attacks that draw from the deep, rich roots of resentment, anger, and self-righteousness--ahh, smell that SDS aroma abrewing! And we all know how well that worked for populists, liberals and Democrats generally, we do, we do....
November 21, 2006 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well let's talk about it then.
The basic goal of government should be a sustainable increase in real standards of living for the vast majority of the population, and that includes reducing extrinsic threats of disruption, such as economic depression, war, disease, natural disaster and man made failures of foresight. Governments that take their eye off this particular ball - which can be counted the majority of governments in the world now and through out the history of the world - no longer have a moral right to govern.
To this end, there government must seek, and create, a consensus of the governed. This is a two way process, often the public cannot get what it wants the way it wants to get it. If the public "doesn't understand" it is often because there are those that don't want them to understand.
Silver in the late 19th century is a good example. Silver money is great for people who dig it up out of the ground. It is less good for the economy as a whole. Economies are not well served by encouraging people to dig things out of the ground to sit in vaults. I have the same basic objection to the gold standard. Only an economy based on rocks, should have money based on rocks. Attempts to introduce silver money - for example in the Latin monetary union - were abject failures. Since the ratio between silver and gold is not fixed, anyone who wants to create money at a fixed rate is betting they can dig more silver than others can dig gold.
But that leaves us with the difficult prospect of governing our own monetary affairs. This is not a process which is intrinsically obvious or intuitive. More over, as history has repeatedly shown, those who control the flow of money often manipulate it to their own advantage. Paper money was in justifiably ill repute for centuries, because those who had the printing presses were under the delusion that they could create money, rather than the reality, which is that they could create currency.
The solution that we have eventually come upon is yes, paper money. But paper money with two important anchors. The first is that the supply of money is, at least in theory, determined by the supply of assets to back it. The second is that industrialized nations are on the hook for both depression and inflation. This form - where those that have the keys to the printing presses are also at moral hazard for the results of how they use them - replaces all of the classical arguments over gold, silver and so on. But Franklin's remark about Republics applies to money as well. The two anchors of monetary responsiblity are only as good as the public's willingness to enforce them. And that happens by electing new people when the old ones have failed to use the tools of monetary policy.
In fact, right now, one of the primary reasons for the loss of pricing power of labor is that what was, at first, money that anyone could create by building a business, increasing the value of their home and community - is now slowly becoming top down money again. The gold standard has been reborn, in control of petroleum. Bryan railed against "A Cross of Gold" - well modern workers in developed economies are being drowned in a vat of oil.
This problem of political economy, along with the more distant, but growing, problem of global warming, leads to the imperative of creating an energy system which is scalable, sustainable and accessible. One day people will realize that carbon is a rock, and we should leave most of it in the ground. But that day is a long way off, and will take two generations to reach. Meanwhile we are going to have to pay the price for waiting as long as we have. New Orleans is an example of what happens to cities when people do not plan ahead. There will be more.
A third problem of "what kind of liberalism" comes from the reality that more than 10 million people in the world - perhaps as high as 20 million - die prematurely for no other reason than they are in poverty. Preventable disease, violent crime, starvation, wars over basic resources add mean that every decade about 320 million years of human life are lost. That number is going to continue to grow, and as oil production peaks somewhere in the next 20 years, accelerate.
The Liberal agenda has been, since 1941, basic freedoms from want and fear, and basic freedoms of speech and conscience for everyone, everywhere in the world. This isn't going to occur by trying to rev up the 20th century extraction economy. The reactionarie have made life much better for the very wealthy, and better for people who can undercut others with lower labor and land costs - but for most other people, the last 30 years haven't seen significant gains real living standards. The last 6 years have been good for resource producers, which, not ironically if one has been paying attention, has been good for unreconstructed socialism in Latin America. Somewhere Lenin is chuckling, because the capitalists are, indeed, funding a revival of planned economies and "hetrodox" - that's code for marxist and socalist - solutions to political economy. So long as they know that a resource bust is coming, and are preparing for the day when the spigot is shut off - they may make headway this time. It's not that "neo-liberalism" has a brilliant track record in Latin America, or indeed almost any country that doesn't have an absolute advantage in trade.
The problem with this overheated world economy can be read on a thermometer, at least, a global scale one. It can also be seen in the growing level of resource instability. Iraq wasn't merely a bad idea, it was the culmination of a train of bad ideas, and a self-contradictory set of policies. One one hand it posited that we could take the oil in Iraq, on the other hand, it was attached to a policy that made that oil much more valuable, The result is rent seeking behavior of a particularly violent kind.
Which leads me to the last pillar of "what kind of liberalism". Peace. Peace in its usual haunts, where the United States no longer uses Thatcherization of some countries to pay for oil and consumer goods from others. This means not only the end of extraction as the source of wealth, but the end of the distinction between producers and consumers, as well as the end of the top down system of social organization which a division between producers and consumers inevitably entails.
Populism is often simple minded, and often simple populists solutions don't end up working, because they are too easily manipulated. The Referendum system is a good example: the most famous uses of it in modern times have been for imbalanced property tax breaks and for special protections for resource interests. Hardly the progressive instrument that it was envisioned.
Stirling Newberry http://www.bopnews.com
November 21, 2006 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
And two notes
First, a note in favor of accuracy. In "The Crime of 1873" MF argued that free coinage of silver could have worked in 1873, but not by 1896 - that is, the point where you originally cited the populist platform from.
Second, what political movements decay into is a legitimate criticism of the movements. Saying that populists who adopt ideas you don't approve of are kicked out of the club of consideration is like the right wing arguing that abstinence is 100% effective as birth control. It's true only in so far as it discounts its own failures. So the point remains - populism of the late 19th century existed in a racist culture and political society, and many of its leaders would collapse into the adoption of virulently bigotted attitudes, including anti-catholic, anti-immigrant, anti-african american attitudes. This should be a lesson for anyone who is proposing populism as a "template" rather than as a component of the future.
Stirling Newberry http://www.bopnews.com
November 21, 2006 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
On DailyKos there was a diary that tried to illustrate what the diarist saw as the difference between liberals and progressives.
From what I understood, progressives are focused on having a discussion with people from all classes from elites to the regular people to determine the proper policies and goals. Experts are important but they are not prima facie correct. Liberalism puts far more faith in experts and the "elite" to determine the proper course and then stay out of the way. The one was participatory the other oligarchical.
Free trade is or course the obvious example. Because the elite control the dialog the populists have been forced to take the contrary position to try to halt the elites so we can actually have a meaningful discussion.
I'm not calling Stirling this type of "liberal" (I am not calling Stirling anything but a provocative thinker and writer) but I thought it was an interesting idea and I think it's something that should be considered in this discussion of economics.
November 21, 2006 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!--Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
November 21, 2006 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but Stirling said:
I don't know what 'sustainable increase' means, because increase means that the thing will eventually grow to an unlimited size. Leaving that aside, what is wrong with almost all economics today is captured in Stirling's thought. This is not the goal of government. The goal of government is to provide a safe, healthy environment where people can live a decent life. Those in the failed states are far from this and need an "increase in real standards of living", but we in the west are already too rich. We consume an unsustainable amount of non-renewable resources. The growth mantra is promoted by politicians and economists alike as a way to promise those getting the short end of the stick a better tomorrow and thus not having to deal with inequality today.
It is not necessary to discuss either present or historical monetary policy to see that there are those in the west who have too much money and power (like the $80+ billion of the Walton family), while there are others in the richest country on earth are are suffering from hunger and lack of health care.
Those in the middle have not (yet) been placed in such a dire state, but they are afraid of this possibility and have already had a taste with outsourcing, downsizing, loss of health and pension benefits and a host of other developments.
The challenge is to transition to a real sustainable society where what we consume equals what we can produce or obtain from the sun (directly or indirectly). Such a level will require the rich becoming much less rich, and the middle learning to live a less wasteful lifestyle. The closest historical parallel (in terms of which classes were affected) was Populism, but the analogy is inexact.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
November 21, 2006 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was pure comedy.
Progressives are quite clearly embarrassed by the libel they are liberals.
Slandering John Kerry as a liberal is a fine example. When did the man ever have an independent thought about anything?
It is beyond my understanding why people are so slothful as to refuse to even consult a lexicographer for definitions. I always like to utilize the very best:
Best, Terry
November 21, 2006 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I don't know what 'sustainable increase' means, because increase means that the thing will eventually grow to an unlimited size." Or that the increase won't be subsequently repealed. I imagine the point is just that government should always strive to increase the standard of living that can be sustained.
November 21, 2006 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Slandering John Kerry as a liberal is a fine example. When did the man ever have an independent thought about anything?
When having volunteered for Vietnam he concluded , while actually in combat- which is hard to do , that the war in which he was fighting couldn't be won and was being lied about to the american people. And when he asked Congress "how do you ask someone to be the last person to die for a lost cause"-or however that quote went exactly.
And if his voting record doesn't reflect independence it at least qualifies as liberal and that's good enough for me. Kerry was a disappointing candidate . That doesn't make him a disappointing human being.
While I have profound respect for Clinton's political skills, and affectionate indulgence for his character flaws , if I had a daughter who
wanted to marry either of those two guys I know
which one I'd prefer.
November 22, 2006 4:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
We may be a rentier economy, but that doesn't mean we have to be slumlords.
November 22, 2006 5:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
The "basic goal of government" is not "a sustainable increase in the standard of living" for those governed in the United States. That may be true for those countries that have a centralized economy, or a monopoly economy, but in this country that has never been a "basic goal."
The "goal" is to form a more perfect union - that is an equal application of the law, that favours no one person or any class over another. The only possible way in which a government could provide "a sustainable increase in the standard of living" for its population would be for the government to first determine what the standard of living would be for its citizens, and then set about enforcing it. The only way to enforce it, is to manipulate, control and mandate production and that is Leninism, not republicanism.
What westerners in this country wanted in the late 19th C., was equal access to investment funds, foreign and domestic. The westerners' very legitimate complaint was the stranglehold Easterners had on both kinds of investment funds virtually guaranteed that the members of the oligarchy would stay rich and grow richer, and no one else would. They believed that the government should control the money supply, not the oligarchy.
Populism began as a movement based on the principle that government is for, by and of the people, and not a priveleged few. The populist movement brought us the 8 hour workday, the direct election of senators, reform of the civil service and anti-monopoly laws. It gave the people the right to referendum, initiative and recall. The U.S. Peoples' Party, the populist party, was noted for its inclusion of women and blacks and actively sought their participation.
That the populist movement has been co-opted at times by radical/extremist elements, doesn't make it a "bad" movement. Like the democratic party or the republican party, there will always be extreme elements that seize control from time to time or attach themselves like leeches to any movement. I might add that their ultimate goal as a party, to remove the gold standard, seems to be working rather well.
November 22, 2006 7:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The "basic goal of government" is not "a sustainable increase in the standard of living" for those governed in the United States. That may be true for those countries that have a centralized economy, or a monopoly economy, but in this country that has never been a "basic goal.""
Then you will have to take that up with a variety of historical nonentities such as Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR. They seemed to have been persuaded otherwise, but, of course, they are utterly minor thinkers compared to your self.
Stirling Newberry http://www.bopnews.com
November 22, 2006 7:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I don't know what 'sustainable increase' means, because increase means that the thing will eventually grow to an unlimited size. "
When we don't have a world where 2 billion people live on less than 2 USD per day, we can take this discussion up. Until then, for the forseeable future, sustainable increase is possible.
"Leaving that aside, what is wrong with almost all economics today is captured in Stirling's thought. This is not the goal of government. The goal of government is to provide a safe, healthy environment where people can live a decent life. "
This statement is everything that is wrong with Republicanism, and much of the Conservative Democratic movement. There is enough wrong with this statement to fill a few volumes. Fortunately the emminent Amartya Sen and Kenneth Arrow have written several volumes on what is wrong with it, so I can simply summarize:
1. The general sense of welfare includes not only present material standards of living, but expecations and options. Hence, failure to improve future expectations degrades present welfare. Short form: people don't like to live in fear.
2. Social choice prevents minimal economic liberty and pareto optimality. Hence, one cannot banish social choice from the realm of economics. Government isn't a zebra on the gridiron of life.
3. "A Decent Life" includes not only material affluence, but participation in social choice as well. Without this participation, individuals are not as well off, even if their material circumstances are temporarily improved.
To which I will add one point from Adam Smith, though updated with modern financial theory:
4. The market's horizons mean that it will consistently fail to make long term unrecaptureable investments which are, none the less, creators of social surplus.
In short fairness extends beyond temporary affluence, and includes the future as well. It also includes intangible rights to which we must socially assign a monetary value. More over the smugness of the commenter leaves aside a point which seems to need some repeating: most of the people on the planet do not live in a state of happy affluence, but are instead locked in grinding poverty. Perhaps "leave us alone to enjoy our good fortune" might sound like a viable theory of government to the very fortunate, but not to most people in the world.
And if government does not busy itself with improving their lives, they will, sooner or later, choose to either end the government, or die trying. Advice to the happily affluent: such periods are bad for business.
Stirling Newberry http://www.bopnews.com
November 22, 2006 7:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wears a bow tie to this day. JKG wore one up until a least a year before his death.
Clearly we are all part of the bow tie conspiracy to keep the silver loving masses down.
Stirling Newberry http://www.bopnews.com
November 22, 2006 7:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Christ, you are such a disdainful, self-important, little prick.
Not one of those presidents ever stated that the "basic goal of government is a sustainable increase in the standard of living." You pulled that out your ass, and you know it and everyone else knows it. First of all, it would not be possible and secondly it would be anathema to a capitalist, republican nation.
You have only the most superficial knowledge of the populist movement in this country, which is more than evident by your essay, which shits out your usual trite, cliched, derivative, dunghill of conceits and affectations , and like the cock you are, you climb upon to crow.
You're wrong and Sawicky is right.
November 22, 2006 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'll give you Galbraith, but Schlesinger is all yours.
Exception, meet Rule. etc..
November 22, 2006 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's not the bowtie, Stirling. It's the Cecil Beaton-ish portrait.
November 22, 2006 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I happen to agree with Stirling's preference (and far prefer his language )but don't think there is any basic goal handed down on clay tablets . Nor can there be. Because there is no universal hierarchy among human preferences for the organization of society . Or even which end of the egg to crack first. I'm a big ender.
Philosophy 101 teaches that you can't argue first principles. But the lesson doesn't always sink in.
And messing things up is the untidy fact that individuals zig where they should zag and , particularly the first time ,vote for the "wrong" party . E.g. young catholic conservatives voted for JFK in 60 and switched to RR in 80 claiming their big D party had changed whereas all that had changed was
they'd gotten around to understanding that their party's politics weren't aligned with their gut instincts.
November 22, 2006 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's an old fashioned motif in portraits to use the diagonal axis: the imposing figure. the downward gaze. And it's not just the bow tie, it's the tux. a better example.
Incredibly pretentious in this context.
November 22, 2006 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
T-shirts and tuxes at twenty paces.
November 22, 2006 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stirling-
Really, freedom of speech and all that, but I think if you talked less people might listen more. I'm not saying to shut up, I'm just saying that several thousand words in the comments section of both your posts and any tangentially about you, defending every minutiae of your conduct from monetary outlook to choice of ties is...rather exhausting for the rest of us.
November 22, 2006 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sterling, you state: So the point remains - populism of the late 19th century ... and many of its leaders would collapse into the adoption of virulently bigotted attitudes, including anti-catholic, anti-immigrant, anti-african american attitudes.
PLEASE REFERENCE THIS BROAD BRUSH STROKE. What Populists leaders, which states? From your general comments so far, it would seem that you are something of a "no-nothing" when it comes to the populist. Which scholars have produced in-depth studies (using primary sources) that support your very broad brush stroke? Tom Watson and Mary Lease were certainly "cranks". (But Lease was hardly a leader in the Peoples Party of Kansas.) Who are the other “cranks” ? Name names. Who were they? Where did they come from? Kyle from South Dakota? Weaver from Iowa? Donnelly from Minnesota? (If you think Donnelly adopted a “virulently bigoted attitude”, then you need to take a refresher course in Minnesota Political History 101.) If you can’t name names to support your claim (or at least reference supporting scholarship), then I think it would be fair to suggest that you yourself have “developed some fairly prejudicial attitudes". By the way, a serious counter to your claim is found in The Tolerant Populists: Kansas Populism and Nativism. by Walter T. K. Nugent. Given that you have made your pronouncement with such certitude, I assume that (a)you have read Nugent’s book – it is now part and parcel of Populists historiography – and (b) you feel what he says is “bunk”. Am I correct?
Cheers
Stephen from Minneapolis
November 23, 2006 12:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are always principle goals for governments. That's what the preamble to the constitution is, the statement of goals. Of course there is no "one basic goal", which is why Newberry's argument is so ridiculous. I gave perfectly reasonable arguments to refute his claim in another post, and see no reason to repost it.
As to how societies organize themselves, we are not discussing that.
Your zigzag argument is completely outside the parameters of the discussion, which is populism.
November 23, 2006 7:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
On November 23, 2006 - 3:27am Stephen from Mi... said:
Sterling, you state: So the point remains - populism of the late 19th century ... and many of its leaders would collapse into the adoption of virulently bigotted attitudes, including anti-catholic, anti-immigrant, anti-african american attitudes.
PLEASE REFERENCE THIS BROAD BRUSH STROKE. What Populists leaders, which states? From your general comments so far, it would seem that you are something of a "no-nothing" when it comes to the populist. Which scholars have produced in-depth studies (using primary sources) that support your very broad brush stroke? Tom Watson and Mary Lease were certainly "cranks". (But Lease was hardly a leader in the Peoples Party of Kansas.) Who are the other “cranks” ? Name names. Who were they? Where did they come from? Kyle from South Dakota? Weaver from Iowa? Donnelly from Minnesota? (If you think Donnelly adopted a “virulently bigoted attitude”, then you need to take a refresher course in Minnesota Political History 101.) If you can’t name names to support your claim (or at least reference supporting scholarship), then I think it would be fair to suggest that you yourself have “developed some fairly prejudicial attitudes". By the way, a serious counter to your claim is found in The Tolerant Populists: Kansas Populism and Nativism. by Walter T. K. Nugent. Given that you have made your pronouncement with such certitude, I assume that (a)you have read Nugent’s book – it is now part and parcel of Populists historiography – and (b) you feel what he says is “bunk”. Am I correct?
Cheers
Stephen from Minneapolis
November 23, 2006 7:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perimeters
November 23, 2006 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
It would appear that regardless of any other principals laid out in any part of the law, if there is a democracy, the majority of voters would wish that the majority would prosper. As most of the arguments was not if they would prosper, but how, such would be the wish of nearly all the voters.
It would seem a reasonable guess that few would deliberately decide that they should do worse. Those who have achieved a level of prosperity, and were greedy enough to want to benefit from the impoverishment of the majority however might well work to reduce what the majority had to say about it, and work to convince them of concepts that would cause them to work against their own interests.
Whatever smoke and mirrors, the results are the ultimate judge of reality. That reality is that the power and prosperity of the majority of Americans has been in decline since the '50's with a gain at the top equal in total but divided among very few. Sometimes the pace is slower sometimes faster, but breakneck in the past 6 years. But the result can be seen here.
Thom Hartmann lays it out in great detail in his book and fairly well in his discussion here. My own blog also deals with reality in several discussions about Libertarians that all group actions need to be seen as the reality it is and how benefits are assigned and how the folk in control are held accountable. It is this accountability that government needs to be the final force.
This is a very different proposal than that the government actually be the unaccountable monopoly, but that there be no unaccountable monopoly of any type. All the Orwellian twisting of this point is no more than fraud and fakery.
November 23, 2006 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
It would appear that regardless of any other principals laid out in any part of the law, if there is a democracy, the majority of voters would wish that the majority would prosper.
Of course. But that's not the end of story.
It does not imply that this desire for prosperity trumps all other desires , all the time. An obvious exception (raised several times above) is that the majority probably is willing to accept a reduction in its prosperity if that's the cost of adequate security. So that particular majority might well support taxes which would depress growth and median income if convinced that's the cost of security.
Or consider the willingness of the majority in almost every colony to accept lower standards of living in order to rid themselves of the colonists. Clearly ,altho the majority might always wish for prosperity , it might also wish for something else even more. .
November 24, 2006 3:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
When people talk about populism, they should mention its successful forms, for example the Minnesota Farmer Labor Party. They ran the state for half a decade in the thirties and were a major factor for at least two decades, and they made many permanent changes which were almost all for the good. And they were unmistakably populist (and by and large, also socialist).
One of the peculiar things about the Farmer-Labor coalition is that it included a lot of small-town bankers. The local bankers saw what was happening, but they were at the mercy of the metropolitan bankers.
Everyone has read Hofstadter (or at least they've heard him quoted and paraphrased) and no one knows anything else, so by now the very mention of "populism" brings a mob of semi-literate no-neck lumpen-intelligentsia out from under the rocks. (Hi, vorkosigan1!)
November 24, 2006 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink