Changes in U.S. China Policy? It's the Corporate Interests, Stupid

I've become addicted to political podcasts that allow me to wade through the mainstream media bullshit coverage that leaves us in the dark as to what's really going on. This morning I listened to the latest Intercept aptly named "Deconstructed" podcast which provides context to US/China relations and takes into account the repression of liberty in China, while also referring to our own transgressions which make our attacks on lack of democracy in China (true dat) hypocritical. There have got to be other reasons for the switch in attitudes toward China over the past 6 years.

Two leading progressive foreign policy voices discuss the House speaker’s decision to visit Taiwan.

https://theintercept.com/2022/08/03/deconstructed-taiwan-nancy-pelosi/

As usual, examining major corporate interests over time vis a vis China offers some insights. I support independent journalism like The Intercept.

As open market neo-liberalist unfettered capitalism captured the world starting in roughly 1980, which includes an oft neglected analysis of the attack on unions for "restraining" the market -- the decline in unions can be traced to this attack since 1980 when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers. 

So let's look at how China was viewed by corporations anxious to see China opened up for two main reasons: access to it's massive populations as a market and access to cheap labor. Thus the corporate lobbyists were set in motion to get both parties to go along -- the classic Clinton/Obama free market neo-liberals. The result? Massive movement of manufacturing out of this country -- that great sucking sound echoed by Ross Perot - a profit before his time - in the 1992 election. 

Remember the days when North Carolina was the heart of American furniture making? It didn't take long to see China become the economic engine of manufacturing (and jobs) lost here. BTW - globalism is also an attack on labor unions - look at the UAW concessions when automakers started going abroad - with the avid support of both political parties who refused to put penalties on them in the name of free market neo-liberalism.

Not only Perot, but the left pro-labor movements in this country also pushed back with the riots in Seattle.

1999 Seattle WTO protests - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › 1999_Seattle_WTO_p...

The 1999 Seattle WTO protests, sometimes referred to as the Battle of Seattle, were a series of protests surrounding the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, ...

To many in North American anarchist and radical circles, the Seattle WTO riots, protests, and demonstrations were viewed as a success.^[34] Prior to the "Battle of Seattle", almost no mention was made of "antiglobalization" in the US media, while the protests were seen as having forced the media to report on 'why' anybody would oppose the WTO.^[35]

Previous mass demonstrations had taken place in Australia in December 1997, in which newly formed grass-roots organizations blockaded Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, and Darwin city centers.^[36]

Bernie was probably the only elected who supported these protests.

 

The podcast does discuss the elements on the left that back China (and Russia) and blame American imperialism -- true on the latter but they seem to absolve current and former communist states of all blame. Nationalism on our part and their part is discussed in the context of attacking foreigners. 

There's a lot of material embedded in this roughly 45 minutes.

 

What happened over our policies toward China over two decades goes a long way to understanding the rise of Trump and Bernie. Both attacked globalism from different angle of course. The Republican party is not only under the control of Trump but an increasingly nationalistic anti-globalist  - and anti-immigrant policy.

 

BTW -- did you see that surprising jobs report? Guess what? The anti-immigrant policies result in labor shortages -- the contradiction for the anti-labor right wing. So let's raise interest rates and cause a recession to raise the unemployment rate and make workers hunger for any job at any wages. Think "late stage capitalism." But back to the main theme:

 

How did we go from "China good" to "China bad" so relatively quickly? The podcast connected a bunch of strands related to corporate interests. Is the real cause the increasing repression or aggressive nationalism? Focus on aggressive economic nationalism to get to the real change in how corporations (the real driving force in our politics) have been affected as China outsmarted them.

They forced them to give up so much to gain access to the markets and cheap labor - then they created competing industries using the technology they forced them to share. And of course, Chinese workers as they prospered began to earn more money and raise costs of production - so that the corps began to drift to Vietnam and cheaper labor.

Thus corporate lobbying began to shift from pro to anti-China. They want confrontations with China to curb their economic ability to compete -- remember -- China has heavy industrial policy of support for their companies - which is anathema to globalism and Neo-liberal free markets. 

Note the recent bi-partisan support for the chips bill which is a tepid version of industrial policy - with lots of perks and giveaways to corporations in the process.

Do you think Nancy Pelosi just went to Taiwan for the food? She is an instrument of a corporate wing of the Dem party that wanted this confrontation.

Don't forget - It's Corporate Interests which run our politics. There are competing corp interests and their lobbyists do battle it out with politicians, with some lining up with one party or the other -- but most place bets on both parties.

Witness they turned down the insulin price caps this morning. Let 'em eat sugar.

 

Sunday Treat: Deep Dives on Dem Party Moves from working class to neo-liberalism - Two Must listen podcasts

EDUCATE, ORGANIZE, MOBILIZE -- IN THAT ORDER --- EdNotes Mantra

Sunday, July 3 -- Only 59 days till September

The first step - EDUCATE.  I don't mean that in an arrogant manner like I have info to shove down your throat but I am learning stuff I want to share. You can't organize people based on misinformation of weak analysis. Logical dialogue can move people in your direction.

I  know people who consider themselves organizers who could use more knowledge to engage people they are trying to organize. The other day a friend said she had trouble with using the term "neo-liberal" and I mentioned the Gary Gerstle,  book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era.

I heard him on Sam Seder Majority Report - links below.

 

People confuse today's poltiical liberals with classic economic liberals (Adam Smith)  and current market works/govt doesn't neo-libs. 

It's worth studying the evolution of the terms which started out meaning freedom from kings who controlled govt then - economic and political freedom -- this was pre-capitalist - and capitalism was a freeing from those mercantile controls- a good thing initially.

 

But then capitalism ran amuck and the New Deal brought it under modified control which the post 60s Republican Party and the late 70s Dem Party have decimated. Neo-liberalism has been a process of releasing those controls - which also included tariffs and controls on trade - and sold globalism as the ultimate freedom -- for a few.  Carter (de-regulate everything to fight inflation), Clinton and Obama escalated. Biden actually gets some credit for moving away because it no longer plays politically.

 

The actual good thing about the Trump election and the Bernie campaigns was  dagger to the heart of neoliberalism which so decimated workers in so many economies. The party is actually split between Neo-libs and anti-globalist proto-fascist element.

The anti- neo liberals on both sides of the right and left line up very differently but when I argue with Trumpise we actually do find areas of agreement.

My crowd is supposedly trying to organize NYC teachers -- and our union leadership is neo-liberal - you'd best have a good explanation on how and why that is.

Just as important is this analysis by Robert Kuttner -- a progressive Dem for 50 years but not hard left. He does this deep dive on The Intercept podcast: Deconstructed. 

 

Both MR and Intercept are not hard left -- let's say Social Democracy leaning. In other words they may be highly critical of capitalism but don't necessarily call for it's downfall -- even if they think it may be in such danger as to fall on its own. But fall where and what takes its place? I'd say a form of fascism before socialism.

Both podcasts go hand in hand with an analysis of FDR years and how the New Deal began to be undermined almost immediately in the late 40s with the Taft-Hartley anti labor act - and the beginning of the Dem Party separation from Labor. Kuttner emphasizes that the Dem party was closest to a Labor Party -- even with the racist southerners.

I was brought up a Democrat by my mom's immigrant family. My aunt told me when I was very young that only the Dems were on our side. By the early 70s's, after she moved to South Miami, she had become a right wing racist -- if she lived she would have marched in Jan. 6.

So that coalition did not have as tight a bonds as Kuttner makes it out to seem. I loved that he agrees with me that John Fetterman if healthy should be the Dem Pres candidate in 2024.

How the Democrats Forgot the New Deal and Paved the Way for Trumpism

Author Robert Kuttner on how Biden can keep American fascism at bay.

Deconstructed

July 1 2022, 6:00 a.m.

 

In Robert Kuttner’s new book, “Going Big: FDR’s Legacy, Biden’s New Deal, and the Struggle to Save Democracy,” he explains how we got to our present political inflection point, how high the stakes are, and what comes next. Kuttner — who co-founded the Economic Policy Institute as well as The American Prospect — joins Jon Schwarz to discuss.

Transcript coming soon.

https://theintercept.com/2022/07/01/deconstructed-fdr-biden-new-deal-robert-kuttner/

I love Sam's show and listen every day at noon for almost 3 hours. Sam brings a POV you don't get on the left -- not off the wall and I agree with 75%.

How can you explain neo-liberalism? One of the clearest explanations I've heard:

Episode https://majorityreportradio.com/2022/06/06/6-6-the-rise-and-fall-of-neoliberalism-w-gary-gerstle

6/6 The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism, & A Vision of What’s Next w/ Gary Gerstle

June 6, 2022

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Sam and Emma host Gary Gerstle, Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge, to discuss his recent book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era. First, Emma and Sam dive into the continued rise of mass shootings over this weekend, the Uvalde Police’s continually changing story, Dr. Oz’s victory in the PA GOP Senate Primary, and Elon suddenly scrapping his Twitter deal after finding out about Twitter BOTS, but definitely not his crashing Tesla stock. They’re then joined by Professor Gerstle as they work through the concept of political orders as these prolonged eras of dominant ideologies, with the two that he largely covers being the New Deal political order, lasting from FDR’s reign up until the ‘60s or so, and the Neoliberal Order, burgeoning in the ‘70s and lasting up until the end of Obama’s presidency, looking at these two orders in contrast, with the former compelling the right to assimilate into a democratic socialist ideology, and the latter seeing a Clinton-lead democratic party assimilating into corporate liberalism and deregulation. Next, they get into the factors that drive the emergence of new orders, starting as a modest movement of political organizations and actors, before networks of donors, constituents, think tanks, and policy networks and political actors arise around it as it proves itself as a viable political system. They then look to the crises that left the vacuum for these orders to step in, with the 1930s Great Depression marking the largest capitalist crisis in US History, and the ‘70s recession occurring alongside rising racial tensions, US imperialism, and a reemergence of international industrial competitors seeing US Capital suddenly threatened from all sides. Sam, Emma, and Professor Gerstle then walk through the evolution of political orders and how one took issue and influence from its priors, first looking to FDR’s desire to create a new form of liberalism, one that puts everyday Americans in a position to actually enjoy their freedom, before Freidman and Hayek come around and reject his appropriation of liberalism, but still looking to government as a corporate facilitator, particularly with the role of the military in ensuring the safety and freedom of markets worldwide. After covering the role of the fall of the USSR and Clinton’s assimilation to neoliberalism, Sam, Emma, and Professor Gerstle walk through our contemporary moment as the neoliberal order stalls, and the difference between a fight between a far-right and a progressive left and the single-camp transitions of previous orders.

And in the Fun Half: Sam and Emma discuss Dr. Jill Biden’s unveiling of a new Nancy Pelosi stamp, just as pride month starts, in an unfortunate moment of institutional fetishization, Dave Rubin obsesses over Elon Musk fighting to get his workers back to work, before inquiring about who died and left COVID in charge. Sam and Emma discuss the original rise of TERFism in England, cover the Ohio GOP’s new bill requiring genital inspections of young girl athletes, a Wisconsin high school gets bomb threats for trying to teach their students to respect queer people, Miles from LI talks the evolution of “based,” and Louie Gohmert comes to the defense of the Right’s right to lie right to the Government. Plus, your calls and IMs!

Check out Gary’s book here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-neoliberal-order-9780197519646?cc=us&lang=en&

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How Education Reform Ate the Democratic Party - Clintons Led the Way in Attack on Teacher Unions

This article is so good I want to print it out and eat it. Thanks to Patrick Walsh for sending this along.

Jennifer Berkshire in an in depth exposure of the Clintons' role and neo-lib Dems in leading ed deform attack on teachers and their unions, which was also chronicled as a positive by the Richard Kahlenberg book on Al Shanker (Tough Liberal), who was a Clinton partner --- instead of opposing he had the AFT/UFT work with them. [See Vera and my review in New Politics of the book where we refer to Shanker as a Ruthless Neocon].

To begin to chronicle the origin of the Democrats’ war on their own—the public school teachers and their unions that provide the troops and the dough in each new campaign cycle to elect the Democrats—is to enter murky territory. The Clintons were early adopters; tough talk against Arkansas’ teachers, then among the poorest paid in the country, was a centerpiece of Bill’s second stint as Governor of Arkansas.

.... as America ponders the mounting economic disequlibriums that gave rise to the Trump insurgency, concerned plutocrats can all agree on one key article of faith: what is holding back the poor and minority children who figure so prominently in the glossy brochures of charter school advocates is not the legacy of racist housing policy or mass incarceration or a tax system that hoovers up an ever growing share of income into the pockets of the wealthy, but schoolteachers and their unions.... Jennifer Berkshire, https://thebaffler.com/latest/ed-reform-ate-the-democrats-berkshire

This is a must read article -- for a decade we have been talking about the Clinton role in opening up the war on teachers back in Arkansas - as I said but can't say often enough, Al Shanker, head of the AFT and UFT joined them as a partner and led the way for teacher unions to walk into the world of ed deform for 30 years instead of opposing it and Randi followed along in spades -- the classic frog being boiled. Unfortunately Jennifer doesn't go the role the union played in this article. [Note to Randi haters who call her a sellout and who wish for the days of Shanker -- she was chosen by Shanker and Feldman for that very reason.]

The disappearing black teacher linked to ed deform [one third of NYC public schools have no black or Latino teachers today.]

Civil rights groups fiercely opposed the most controversial feature of the Clintons’ reform agenda—competency tests for teachers—on the grounds that Black teachers, many of whom had attended financially starved Black colleges, would disproportionately bear their brunt.

We saw the classic of ed deform was a disappearing of black teachers, many from the communities and their replacement by temp TFA white inexperienced people. In NYC alone thousands of teachers of color were fired 20 years ago over licensing issues related to the test teachers had to take. I knew some excellent teachers in my school who fell into this category.

We know ed notes readers so pissed at the Dem party role in ed deform they wouldn't vote for Hillary even though it will be proven that was also suicidal. Reason? The Dem Party centrists are being forced to back off ed deform -- witness Cuomo - even though if given a choice of him or Trump I would have a very hard time.

Here is another quote about a leading Dem:

Osborne told an interviewer that teachers unions belong in the same category with segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace. “They’re actually doing what George Wallace did, standing in the schoolhouse door, denying opportunity to poor minority kids.” To document their perfidy, Osborne cited the opposition of teachers unions in Massachusetts last year to Question Two—a ballot initiative proposing dramatic charter school expansion. Voters rejected the measure by nearly two to one—the same ratio, as it happens, by which wealthy pro-charter donors dwarfed the union spending that so upset Osborne.

Jennifer ties other leading Dems into the neoliberal deform movement

By the early 1980s, there was already a word for turning public institutions upside down: neoliberalism. Before it degenerated into a flabby insult, neoliberal referred to a self-identified brand of Democrat, ready to break with the tired of dogmas of the past. “The solutions of the thirties will not solve the problems of the eighties,” wrote Randall Rothenberg in his breathless 1984 paean to this new breed, whom he called simply The Neoliberals. His list of luminaries included the likes of Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, Gary Hart and Al Gore (for the record, Gore eschewed the neoliberal label in favor of something he liked to call “neopopulism”). In Rothenberg’s telling, the ascendancy of the neoliberals represented an economic repositioning of the Democratic Party that had begun during the economic crises of the 1970s. The era of big, affirmative government demanding action—desegregate those schools, clean up those polluted rivers, enforce those civil rights and labor laws—was over. It was time for fresh neo-ideas.

The link to the union capitulation is that Shanker endorsed the Nation at Risk in 1983 and unions stopped calling for lower class sizes and other real reforms -- that education can be reformed by getting more competent teachers and getting rid of so-called bad teachers -- and also -- using test scores to judge kids and teachers.

One more quote from Jennifer for those who don't get to the entire piece below -- something all of you should send out to everyone you work with and beyond.

Today’s Democratic school reformers—a team heavy on billionaires, pols on the move, and paid advocates for whatever stripe of fix is being sold—depict their distaste for regulation, their zeal for free market solutions as au courant thinking. They rarely acknowledge their neoliberal antecedents. The self-described radical pragmatists at the Progressive Policy Institute, for instance, got their start as Bill Clinton’s policy shop, branded as the intellectual home for New Democrats. Before its current push for charter schools, PPI flogged welfare reform. In fact, David Osborne, the man so fond of likening teacher unions to arch segregationists in the south, served as Al Gore’s point person for “reinventing government.” Today the model for Osborne’s vision for reinventing public education is post-Katrina New Orleans—where 7,500 mostly Black school employees were fired en route to creating the nation’s first nearly all-charter-school-system, wiping out a pillar of the city’s Black middle class in the process.

How Education Reform Ate the Democratic Party

The problem is that the Democrats have little to offer that’s markedly different from what DeVos is selling.

Read it all and tell me how it tastes: https://thebaffler.com/latest/ed-reform-ate-the-democrats-berkshire

Neoliberalism - Where Do Trump and Hillary Line Up? Plus Bernie: Dems Have to Wake Up

In the current election campaign, Hillary Clinton has been the most perfect embodiment of neoliberalism among all the candidates, she is almost its all-time ideal avatar, and I believe this explains, even if not articulated this way, the widespread discomfort among the populace toward her ascendancy. .......   Absent the neoliberal framework, we simply cannot grasp what is good or bad for citizens under Cruz versus Trump, or Clinton versus Sanders, or Clinton versus Trump, away from the distraction of personalities. To what extent does each of them agree or disagree with neoliberalism? Are there important differences? How much is Sanders a deviation? Can we still rely on conventional distinctions like liberal versus conservative, or Democrat versus Republican, to understand what is going on? How do we grasp movements like the Tea Party, Occupy, and now the Trump and Sanders insurgencies?...

the state has become the market, the market has become the state, and therefore both have ceased to exist in the form we have classically understood them.

Of course the word hasn’t gotten around to the people yet, hence all the confusion about whether Hillary Clinton is more neoliberal than Barack Obama, or whether Donald Trump will be less neoliberal than Hillary Clinton. The project of neoliberalism—i.e., the redefinition of the state, the institutions of society, and the self—has come so far along that neoliberalism is almost beyond the need of individual entities to make or break its case. Its penetration has gone too deep, and none of the democratic figureheads that come forward can fundamentally question its efficacy.
I said almost. The reason why Bernie Sanders, self-declared democratic socialist, is so threatening to neoliberalism is that he has articulated a conception of the state, civil society, and the self that is not founded in the efficacy and rationality of the market.

A superb piece on neoliberalism from Salon. Keep in mind in all my posts on neoliberalism - the UFT/NYSUT/AFT complex of leadership are neoliberals and that goes a ways to explain a lot. My last post on the NY Times piece on charters in Detroit is perfect neoliberalism in action. Bernie is presented as the ONLY option to NL - not Trump whom the press presents at the alternative which he is not. The best shot to change directions will come I believe in 2020.

Over the last fifteen years, editors often asked me not to mention the word “neoliberalism,” because I was told readers wouldn’t comprehend the “jargon.” This has begun to change recently, as the terminology has come into wider usage, though it remains shrouded in great mystery.... It is not surprising to find neoliberal multiculturalists—comfortably established in the academy—likewise demonizing, or othering, not Muslims, Mexicans, or African Americans, but working-class whites (the quintessential Trump proletariat) who have a difficult time accepting the fluidity of self-definition that goes well with neoliberalism, something that we might call the market capitalization of the self..... Salon, This is our neoliberal nightmare: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and why the market and the wealthy win every time, Anis Shivani

A reader suggested the Salon piece on neoliberalism and it points to the fears of using the "n" word.

Neoliberalism is excused for the crises it repeatedly brings on—one can think of a regular cycle of debt and speculation-fueled emergencies in the last forty years, such as the developing country debt overhang of the 1970s, the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, the Asian currency crisis of the 1990s, and the subprime mortgage crisis of the 2000s—better than any ideology I know of. This is partly because its very existence as ruling ideology is not even noted by the population at large, which continues to derive some residual benefits from the welfare state inaugurated by Keynesianism but has been led to believe by neoliberal ideologues to think of their reliance on government as worthy of provoking guilt, shame, and melancholy, rather than something to which they have legitimate claim.

There's a lot of meat here so go to it below.

But first:
In yesterday's Times Bernie had an op-ed: Bernie Sanders: Democrats Need to Wake Up

Let’s be clear. The global economy is not working for the majority of people in our country and the world. This is an economic model developed by the economic elite to benefit the economic elite. We need real change.

But we do not need change based on the demagogy, bigotry and anti-immigrant sentiment that punctuated so much of the Leave campaign’s rhetoric — and is central to Donald J. Trump’s message.

We need a president who will vigorously support international cooperation that brings the people of the world closer together, reduces hypernationalism and decreases the possibility of war. We also need a president who respects the democratic rights of the people, and who will fight for an economy that protects the interests of working people, not just Wall Street, the drug companies and other powerful special interests.

We need to fundamentally reject our “free trade” policies and move to fair trade. Americans should not have to compete against workers in low-wage countries who earn pennies an hour. We must defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We must help poor countries develop sustainable economic models.

We need to end the international scandal in which large corporations and the wealthy avoid paying trillions of dollars in taxes to their national governments.

We need to create tens of millions of jobs worldwide by combating global climate change and by transforming the world’s energy system away from fossil fuels.

We need international efforts to cut military spending around the globe and address the causes of war: poverty, hatred, hopelessness and ignorance.

The notion that Donald Trump could benefit from the same forces that gave the Leave proponents a majority in Britain should sound an alarm for the Democratic Party in the United States. Millions of American voters, like the Leave supporters, are understandably angry and frustrated by the economic forces that are destroying the middle class.

In this pivotal moment, the Democratic Party and a new Democratic president need to make clear that we stand with those who are struggling and who have been left behind. We must create national and global economies that work for all, not just a handful of billionaires.

======

Salon, This is our neoliberal nightmare: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and why the market and the wealthy win every time, Anis Shivani

http://www.salon.com/2016/06/06/this_is_our_neoliberal_nightmare_hillary_clinton_donald_trump_and_why_the_market_and_the_wealthy_win_every_time/

Over the last fifteen years, editors often asked me not to mention the word “neoliberalism,” because I was told readers wouldn’t comprehend the “jargon.” This has begun to change recently, as the terminology has come into wider usage, though it remains shrouded in great mystery.

People throw the term around loosely, as they do with “fascism,” with the same confounding results. Imagine living under fascism or communism, or earlier, classical liberalism, and not being allowed to acknowledge that particular frame of reference to understand economic and social issues. Imagine living under Stalin and never using the communist framework but focusing only on personality clashes between his lieutenants, or likewise for Hitler or Mussolini or Mao or Franco and their ideological systems! But this curious silence, this looking away from ideology, is exactly what has been happening for a quarter century, since neoliberalism, already under way since the early 1970s, got turbocharged by the Democratic party under the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and Bill Clinton. We live under an ideology that has not been widely named or defined!

Absent the neoliberal framework, we simply cannot grasp what is good or bad for citizens under Cruz versus Trump, or Clinton versus Sanders, or Clinton versus Trump, away from the distraction of personalities. To what extent does each of them agree or disagree with neoliberalism? Are there important differences? How much is Sanders a deviation? Can we still rely on conventional distinctions like liberal versus conservative, or Democrat versus Republican, to understand what is going on? How do we grasp movements like the Tea Party, Occupy, and now the Trump and Sanders insurgencies?
Neoliberalism has been more successful than most past ideologies in redefining subjectivity, in making people alter their sense of themselves, their personhood, their identities, their hopes and expectations and dreams and idealizations. Classical liberalism was successful too, for two and a half centuries, in people’s self-definition, although communism and fascism succeeded less well in realizing the “new man.”

It cannot be emphasized enough that neoliberalism is not classical liberalism, or a return to a purer version of it, as is commonly misunderstood; it is a new thing, because the market, for one thing, is not at all free and untethered and dynamic in the sense that classical liberalism idealized it. Neoliberalism presumes a strong state, working only for the benefit of the wealthy, and as such it has little pretence to neutrality and universality, unlike the classical liberal state.
I would go so far as to say that neoliberalism is the final completion of capitalism’s long-nascent project, in that the desire to transform everything—every object, every living thing, every fact on the planet—in its image had not been realized to the same extent by any preceding ideology. Neoliberalism happens to be the ideology—unlike the three major forerunners in the last 250 years—that has the fortune of coinciding with technological change on a scale that makes its complete penetration into every realm of being a possibility for the first time in human history.

From the early 1930s, when the Great Depression threatened the classical liberal consensus (the idea that markets were self-regulating, and the state should play no more than a night-watchman role), until the early 1970s, when global instability including currency chaos unraveled it, the democratic world lived under the Keynesian paradigm: markets were understood to be inherently unstable, and the interventionist hand of government, in the form of countercyclical policy, was necessary to make capitalism work, otherwise the economy had a tendency to get out of whack and crash.

It’s an interesting question if it was the stagflation of the 1970s, following the unhitching of the United States from the gold standard and the arrival of the oil embargo, that brought on the neoliberal revolution, with Milton Friedman discrediting fiscal policy and advocating a by-the-numbers monetarist policy, or if it was neoliberalism itself, in the form of Friedmanite ideas that the Nixon administration was already pursuing, that made stagflation and the end of Keynesianism inevitable.

It should be said that neoliberalism thrives on prompting crisis after crisis, and has proven more adept than previous ideologies at exploiting these crises to its benefit, which then makes the situation worse, so that each succeeding crisis only erodes the power of the working class and makes the wealthy wealthier. There is a certain self-fulfilling aura to neoliberalism, couched in the jargon of economic orthodoxy, that has remained immune from political criticism, because of the dogma that was perpetuated—by Margaret Thatcher and her acolytes—that There Is No Alternative (TINA).

Neoliberalism is excused for the crises it repeatedly brings on—one can think of a regular cycle of debt and speculation-fueled emergencies in the last forty years, such as the developing country debt overhang of the 1970s, the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, the Asian currency crisis of the 1990s, and the subprime mortgage crisis of the 2000s—better than any ideology I know of. This is partly because its very existence as ruling ideology is not even noted by the population at large, which continues to derive some residual benefits from the welfare state inaugurated by Keynesianism but has been led to believe by neoliberal ideologues to think of their reliance on government as worthy of provoking guilt, shame, and melancholy, rather than something to which they have legitimate claim.
It is not surprising to find neoliberal multiculturalists—comfortably established in the academy—likewise demonizing, or othering, not Muslims, Mexicans, or African Americans, but working-class whites (the quintessential Trump proletariat) who have a difficult time accepting the fluidity of self-definition that goes well with neoliberalism, something that we might call the market capitalization of the self.
George W. Bush’s useful function was to introduce necessary crisis into a system that had grown too stable for its own good; he injected desirable panic, which served as fuel to the fire of the neoliberal revolution. Trump is an apostate—at least until now—in desiring chaos on terms that do not sound neoliberal, which is unacceptable; hence Jeb Bush’s characterization of him as the “candidate of chaos.” Neoliberalism loves chaos, that has been its modus operandi since the early 1970s, but only the kind of chaos it can direct and control.
To go back to origins, the Great Depression only ended conclusively with the onset of the second world war, after which Keynesianism had the upper hand for thirty-five years. But just as the global institutions of Keynesianism, specifically the IMF and the World Bank, were being founded at the New Hampshire resort of Bretton Woods in 1944, the founders of the neoliberal revolution, namely Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and others were forming the Mount Pelerin Society (MPS) at the eponymous Swiss resort in 1947, creating the ideology which eventually defeated Keynesianism and gained the upper hand during the 1970s.

So what exactly is neoliberalism, and how is it different from classical liberalism, whose final manifestation came under Keynesianism?

Neoliberalism believes that markets are self-sufficient unto themselves, that they do not need regulation, and that they are the best guarantors of human welfare. Everything that promotes the market, i.e., privatization, deregulation, mobility of finance and capital, abandonment of government-provided social welfare, and the reconception of human beings as human capital, needs to be encouraged, while everything that supposedly diminishes the market, i.e., government services, regulation, restrictions on finance and capital, and conceptualization of human beings in transcendent terms, is to be discouraged.

When Hillary Clinton frequently retorts—in response to demands for reregulation of finance, for instance—that we have to abide by “the rule of law,” this reflects a particular understanding of the law, the law as embodying the sense of the market, the law after it has undergone a revolution of reinterpretation in purely economic terms. In this revolution of the law persons have no status compared to corporations, nation-states are on their way out, and everything in turn dissolves before the abstraction called the market.

One way to sum up neoliberalism is to say that everything—everything—is to be made over in the image of the market, including the state, civil society, and of course human beings. Democracy becomes reinterpreted as the market, and politics succumbs to neoliberal economic theory, so we are speaking of the end of democratic politics as we have known it for two and a half centuries. As the market becomes an abstraction, so does democracy, but the real playing field is somewhere else, in the realm of actual economic exchange—which is not, however, the market. We may say that all exchange takes place on the neoliberal surface.

Neoliberalism is often described—and this creates a lot of confusion—as “market fundamentalism,” and while this may be true for neoliberal’s self-promotion and self-presentation, i.e., the market as the ultimate and only myth, as were the gods of the past, I would argue that in neoliberalism there is no such thing as the market as we have understood it from previous ideologies.

The neoliberal state—actually, to utter the word state seems insufficient here, I would claim that a new entity is being created, which is not the state as we have known it, but an existence that incorporates potentially all the states in the world and is something that exceeds their sum—is all-powerful, it seeks to leave no space for individual self-conception in the way that classical liberalism, and even communism and fascism to some degree, were willing to allow.

There are competing understandings of neoliberal globalization, when it comes to the question of whether the state is strong or weak compared to the primary agent of globalization, i.e., the corporation, but I am taking this logic further, I am suggesting that the issue is not how strong the state is in the service of neoliberalism, but whether there is anything left over beyond the new definition of the state. Another way to say it is that the state has become the market, the market has become the state, and therefore both have ceased to exist in the form we have classically understood them.

Of course the word hasn’t gotten around to the people yet, hence all the confusion about whether Hillary Clinton is more neoliberal than Barack Obama, or whether Donald Trump will be less neoliberal than Hillary Clinton. The project of neoliberalism—i.e., the redefinition of the state, the institutions of society, and the self—has come so far along that neoliberalism is almost beyond the need of individual entities to make or break its case. Its penetration has gone too deep, and none of the democratic figureheads that come forward can fundamentally question its efficacy.
I said almost. The reason why Bernie Sanders, self-declared democratic socialist, is so threatening to neoliberalism is that he has articulated a conception of the state, civil society, and the self that is not founded in the efficacy and rationality of the market. He does not believe—unlike Hillary Clinton—that the market can tackle climate change or income inequality or unfair health and education outcomes or racial injustice, all of which Clinton propagates. Clinton’s impending “victory” (whatever machinations were involved in engineering it) will only strengthen neoliberalism, as the force that couldn’t be defeated even when the movement was as large and transcendent as Sanders’s. Although Sanders doesn’t specify “neoliberalism” as the antagonist, his entire discourse presumes it.
Likewise, while Trump supporters want to take their rebellion in a fascist direction, their discomfort with the logic of the market is as pervasive as the Sanders camp, and is an advance, I believe, over the debt and unemployment melancholy of the Tea Party, the shame that was associated with that movement’s loss of identity as bourgeois capitalists in an age of neoliberal globalization. The Trump supporters, I believe, are no longer driven by shame, as was true of the Tea Party, and as has been true of the various dissenting movements within the Republican party, evangelical or otherwise, in the recent past. Rather, they have taken the shackles off and are ready for a no-holds barred “politically incorrect” fight with all others: they want to be “winners,” even at the cost of exterminating others, and that is not the neoliberal way, which doesn’t acknowledge that there can be winners and losers in the neoliberal hyperspace.

In the current election campaign, Hillary Clinton has been the most perfect embodiment of neoliberalism among all the candidates, she is almost its all-time ideal avatar, and I believe this explains, even if not articulated this way, the widespread discomfort among the populace toward her ascendancy. People can perceive that her ideology is founded on a conception of human beings striving relentlessly to become human capital (as her opening campaign commercial so overtly depicted), which means that those who fail to come within the purview of neoliberalism should be rigorously ostracized, punished, and excluded.

This is the dark side of neoliberalism’s ideological arm (a multiculturalism founded on human beings as capital), which is why this project has become increasingly associated with suppression of free speech and intolerance of those who refuse to go along with the kind of identity politics neoliberalism promotes.

And this explains why the 1990s saw the simultaneous and absolutely parallel rise, under the Clintons, of both neoliberal globalization and various regimes of neoliberal disciplining, such as the shaming and exclusion of former welfare recipients (every able-bodied person should be able to find work, therefore under TANF welfare was converted to a performance management system designed to enroll everyone in the workforce, even if it meant below-subsistence wages or the loss of parental responsibilities, all of it couched in the jargon of marketplace incentives).
The actual cost to the state of the AFDC program was minimal, but its symbolism was incalculable. The end of welfare went hand in hand with the disciplinary “crime bill” pushed by the Clintons, leading to an epidemic of mass incarceration. Neoliberalism, unlike classical liberalism, does not permit a fluidity of self-expression as an occasional participant in the market, and posits prison as the only available alternative for anyone not willing to conceive of themselves as being present fully and always in the market.

A Primer on Neoliberalism from Fiorillo

UPDATED: July 6, 8AM

There was a good debate at Gotham Schools the other day that led to this interchange on the issue of neoliberalism. The discussion came out of the Eric Nadelstern story which is worth reading -- I will comment on that in another blog.

Use of the word "liberal" confuses people who think it refers to classic American liberalism -- or the left. Claucius asked that very question of Michael Fiorillo who responded in a concise manner.


Michael Fiorillo (unregistered) wrote:

The consequences of Nadelstern's implementation of Bloomberg and Klein's policies - a power grab intended to shut out stakeholders, administrative dominance (increasingly wielded by people explicitly chosen for their minimal teaching experience), constant disruption and destabilization, undermining of teacher's professional autonomy, etc. -  have been anything but unintentional.  On the contrary, they are central to the neoliberal project to privatize the schools and turn them into profit centers. If he failed to see that, it was his opportunism that blinded him.Disruption, destabilization and creating a climate of fear and intimidation in the schools is the only thing these people are competent at. To re-phrase Tacitus, they create a desolation and call it learning.

 claudius (unregistered) wrote, in response to Michael Fiorillo (unregistered):

 Not sure why you call these policies "neoliberal". Privatization of state institutions, education as profit centers, and attacks on civil service employees and unions hardly seems liberal in any traditional sense of the term. Neo-conservative seems more appropriate to me.  But hey, I'm just a teacher and don't have time these days after lesson plans, teaching, and all the new time killers principals think up to keep teacher running to follow the new political terminology here. I am trying though and have learned that we need more "rigor" in my "failing school" so we can be more "accountable". So help me out Michael.

Link to comment

Michael Fiorillo (unregistered) wrote: Claudious, You're right, there's nothing "liberal" (in the mid-20th century sense of the term) about union busting and privatizing the common wealth of society, but that's exactly what Neoliberalism is about. Instead, you have to think about the word's earlier, 19th century meaning, which essentially meant laissez faire and absolute property rights. That old, New Deal-ish liberalism that Rush Limbaugh loves to bark about - pluralism, the common good, labor rights as a necessary brake on the built-in nastiness of unregulated business - was interred by Bill Clinton in the '90's, replaced by NAFTA and other trade agreements that undermine living and wage standards, elimination of social safety nets that have further lowered wages, economic domination by Finance at the expense of the broader economy (thus the omnipresence of Wall Street in every corner of so-called education reform) and the almost complete absorption of the Democrats into little more than a self-deluded and less visibly insane wing of The Money Party. Of course, Neoliberals trumpet their social liberalism - support for gay and abortion rights, which are good things - but that costs them nothing, and in the case of abortion, keeps their employees more productive (see Michael Bloomberg's feelings about this in testimony given at a sexual discrimination suit he faced: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/nyregion/a-testy-bloomberg-emerges..). Sure, they're big social liberals, but the minute someone wants a pay raise, or some say on the job, or simply wants to teach without being continually blamed for problems not of their  making and interfered with by arrogant know-nothings, out come the knives (for the good of the children, of course!). Here are two links that describe neoliberalism far better than I can: http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376 http://ann.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/610/1/21 The second link is to an article by the eminent geographer David Harvey, who lays it all out. Link to comment claudius Thanks for the clarification of "neo" liberalism. I was aware of the much older definition of liberalism, which goes back to the Whig party in Britain if I remember correctly. Before becoming a teacher, I worked on Wall St. where a lot of my colleagues were libertarians a la Ayn Rand, so I am aware of this socially "liberal" streak in the conservative movement. Still, neoliberalism seems a somewhat anachronistic use of the term liberal in today's context, at least to me. Additionally, as a teacher who automatically receives free copies of the NY Post every day, I am  aware of the relentless propaganda battle being waged in the press, so naturally I am suspicious of who is defining what terms for their own interest. Otherwise I am in much agreement with what you say and appreciate your many comments.

Ed Deform and Neoliberalism

People are comparing Egypt and Wisconsin. The link? Neoliberalism. Tattoo the word on your arm. Look at the entire ed deform program in the context of neoliberalism. Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" is the bible ed deform resisters. Paul Krugman on Friday referenced Klein's groundbreaking work. Now if only Krugman would tie the  string to the ed deforms and tell people that charter schools are the battering ram of neoliberal assault on the public school system. Leonie Haimson's husband, Michael Oppenheimer, teaches at Princeton with Krugman. Michael should whisper sweet anti ed deformer words in his ear.

Confused about the Democratic Party support for ed deform? The Clintons are classic neoliberals and the rest of the party is in step.

Confused about why the UFT/AFT/MulGarten crew won't put up a defense? They too are neoliberals, who are close relatives of neocons. That was why Vera Pavone and I titled our review of Richard Kahlenberg's "Albert Shanker: Tough Liberal" Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon. We could easily have called it "Ruthless Neoliberal" but didn't want to confuse people who think neolineral is a modernized version of classic American liberalism when it is exactly the opposite.

Union leaders like Weingarten differ from the anti-union neoliberals in that they feel unions should exist - naturally - but in limited format - in support of the government/corporate state more than the membership. But of course they support the concept of unions - look how well they have done as leaders who misdirect the energies of the members. That is why Weingarten is helping find ways to get rid of teachers. See NYC Educator: A Fine Day for a Sellout

With the myriad of anti-teacher crap pervading the headlines, AFT President Randi Weingarten thinks it's a good time to discuss faster ways to fire us

If things ever get sticky just watch where they stand.

What is neoliberalism?

Yves Smith at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/02/al-jazeera-on-egypts-revolt-against-neoliberalism.html  has the links:

In his Brief History of Neoliberalism, the eminent social geographer David Harvey outlined “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.”

Neoliberal states guarantee, by force if necessary, the “proper functioning” of markets; where markets do not exist (for example, in the use of land, water, education, health care, social security, or environmental pollution), then the state should create them.

Guaranteeing the sanctity of markets is supposed to be the limit of legitimate state functions, and state interventions should always be subordinate to markets. All human behavior, and not just the production of goods and services, can be reduced to market transactions.

And the application of utopian neoliberalism in the real world leads to deformed societies as surely as the application of utopian communism did…..

KRUGMAN ARTICLE BELOW THE FOLD

Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Bill Perkins Charter School Hearing Videos - Parent and Community Voices

New You Tube channel: ednotesonline

Today's NY Post is already throwing up candidates to oppose Bill Perkins. They will raise lots of money. But they will be facing people in the streets like the speakers here.

This particular panel was very inspirational. The ed deformers should be nervous, very nervous.

I know all of the people speaking here except Sonia Hampton, who is a delightful discovery for me. Many of the things they say will blow you away. It is growing voices like these from the community that is the biggest form of resistance to BloomKlein since no one cares much what teachers say. A very important point is that the ed deformers and charter school forces cannot accuse them of being tools of the UFT. Some work with GEM. But just watch them all in action and try to tell them they are a tool of anyone. [Still being processed from this batch: Jim Devor and Rosie Mendez which will be added to this post later.] Also, don't forget to check out my video in the post below this - I was the last speaker at around 9pm. I spoke after 3 HSA parents spoke. Nice people and we had a good chat afterwards. But I challenge the HSA political machine supporting BloomKlein and mayoral control while at the same time attacking the failures of the very school system they are running.


Lydia Bellahcene, Parent PS 15K. Lydia was there all day - from even before I arrived at 10- with her young child, who just may be the best behaved child I have ever seen in my life. Lydia makes an awesome presentation here. I've gotten to know her through the PS 15/PAVE battle and she is one of the main CAPEers. She never ceases to amaze me. That the actions of BloomKlein have led to activating her and people like her is a sign of their ultimate failure.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU-n8OvBhao


Khem Irby, Parent District 13, Brooklyn- another awesome parent advocate. Khem is always there for everyone. She makes a statement for Leonie and for herself.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1FYsHYo0ww


Sonia Hampton, Parent PS/MS 149, Harlem. This is the first time I've seen Sonia and my mouth fell open at her testimony. I wanted her to go on forever.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47MJUHScfuo

Bill Hargraves and Akinlabi Mackall do a lot of community organizing in a number of spheres including the Coalition for Public Education, which has been exploring opportunities to work together with GEM.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkHfkNtX4ss

Add-On:
These parent and community voices have been so strong and it's been a pleasure getting to know them over the past year. Ed Notes has often been looked at as a voice for teachers. But since I began teaching I had the utmost respect for many of the parents I met. I can honestly say I had fantastic relationships with the parents of the kids in my class. I worked very hard at it. The first day of school I gave them my phone number (see KIPP, we did it 40 years before you). That built trust and helped enormously, though they rarely called. Kids were very rarely able to divide me from their parents or use them against me. It had a big impact on their behavior and created an extremely positive climate for all of us. Teachers must find ways to create links to parents, both educationally and politically. Without a joint alliance, the forces of BloomKlein and neoliberalism, which has a basic aim of sowing divisions, win out.

I started a new you tube channel - ednotesonline - and future videos will no longer be listed under norscot2, though you can still access the 77 videos I already posted there. Other videos will be posted at the GEMNYC you tube channel.

If traffic gets too heavy for all these videos and slows up the blog, let me know and I will pull them and leave just the links to you tube.

All videos must be 10 minutes so I had to do some trimming to get them in. So if you see yourself and a bit is missing that is why.

Coming in next batches: Magnificent Mona and cohort charter school parents rake over charter school operators, followed by the John White interrogation on how charter schools get parent info.

Teacher Evaluations: Bill Gates and the Unity/UFT, Perfect Together

I'm just getting to the issue of that study on teacher evaluation being sponsored by Bill Gates in partnership with the UFT. At the bottom of it all is the neoliberal agenda.

We're certainly not surprised that they are in bed together. Bringing business practices to the classroom is part of the neoliberal agenda. And coming up with a way to measure teachers - for the purpose of weeding out certain types, like the ones who teach humanism and democratic principles instead od test prep - is a basic tenet. Neoliberals see democracy as an alien concept. Thus schools need dictators. As do unions.

We've been connecting the UFT to the neoliberals for a generation, especially since Al Shanker signed onto it in the mid-70's when the budget cuts hit deeply into the ranks, followed by his jumping on board the Business Roundtable's "independent" study, A Nation at Risk.

Unity Caucus is trying to play this as somehow being good for teachers. "Let's have a seat at the table." Just like the UFT/AFT had at the origins of NCLB. Nice job.

James Eterno put up an informal poll on the ICE blog, How Should Teachers be Evaluated?

There have been 25 comments so far. A Unity flack is wondering why James doesn't sign up. "Try it before you criticize Unity all the time." These cloying games by Unity ignore the basic fact: They are the enemy. Of course Ed Notes and ICE and so many other teacher blogs see through the games they play.

Unity flacks and the leadership play the bait and switch game as cover for the real agenda. New UFT President Michael Mulgrew responded to a teacher:

Almost all of the "reform" ideas that are being discussed both here in NYC and nationally are ideas that are brought from people who are outside of the classroom. I felt it was imperative that we engage in research that truly looked at what happens inside of a classroom and worked with teachers as the main part of the research. It is a way that allows us to control what happens in our profession instead of waiting for those on the outside to pound us with their ideas when they have never walked in our shoes. [The full letter from the teacher and his full response is below.]

Does anyone think the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership represents what happens inside a classroom?

Mulgrew's original letter to teachers claimed the study was "being conducted by independent third-party researchers." Sure. Just like The New Teacher Project's attacks on ATRs were viewed by the NY Times as "independent" studies. I'll bet someone has a dog in the race. And I bet there's some Gates money going to flow to some elements at the UFT. I mean, where could Gates buy a better partner to peddle his junk?

Mulgrew also said:
we all recognize that the work of teachers must be measured in ways that are fair and valid. Nationally, current measures of teaching rarely take into account the full range of what teachers do (no single measure really can), or the context in which they teach. The Measures of Effective Teaching project, on the other hand, begins right in the classroom and will explore an array of teacher measures: video observations, surveys, and student growth. It will compare these measures to each other, and to nationally recognized standards, and it will look at their inter-relatedness. It will be informed by actual teacher practice.

Measured, Mike? What if we measured the performance of the UFT leadership over the past decade? What the UFT is covering for here is the concept that we need ways to measure teachers quantitatively. A major plank of the neoliberal agenda to privatize education is to quantify students and teachers. Do we see this occurring with other jobs? Police/fire/ lawyers/ doctors/politicians? Imagine saying that we will never bring down crime rates until we improve the performance of the cops? Or cut the number of fires unless we get higher quality firemen? Or win a war without better soldiers? Why not set up charter police stations and alternative military? Wouldn't the war go better if there was some competition? Shouldn't Afgans have some choice in the army they get to come into their villages? Shouldn't they be able to chose from competing organizations as to which missile get to kill their children? Come on, they need choice.

Here are a few words from the introduction to a book sent to me by former teacher Louis Bedrock: Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools by Kenneth J. Saltman:

In education, neoliberalism has taken hold with tremendous force, remaking educational common sense and pushing forward the privatization and deregulation agendas....the shift to business language and logic can be understood through the extent to which neoliberal ideals have succeeded in taking over educational debates...

The "TINA" thesis (There is No Alternative to the Market) that has come to dominate politics throughout much of the world has infected educational thought as omnipresent market terms such as accountability, choice, efficiency, competition, monopoly, and performance [outcomes] frame educational debates. Nebulous terms borrowed from the business world, such as achievement, excellence, and best practices, conceal ongoing struggles over competing values, visions, and ideological debates. (Achieve what? Excel at what? Best practices for whom? And says who?)

The only questions left on reform agendas appear to be how to best enforce knowledge and curriculum conducive to individual upward mobility within the economy [education only has the goal of preparing for jobs, not as productive citizens in a democratic society - something neoliberals really abhor] and national economic competition as it contributes to a corporately managed model of globalization as perceived from the perspective of business.

This dominant...view of education is propagated by.. Thomas Friedman...and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation...[add Broad and a horde of others.]

Saltman bases his book on Naomi Klein's "Disaster Capitalism" but focuses on education as he lays out the nuts and bolts of it in his intro and then zooms in on 3 examples: New Orleans, Iraq and Chicago. I will post more as I read more.

Now, I've said it time and again that the only force capable of organizing resistance to these attacks are the teacher unions. And they've punted.

Why does the UFT go along with the people who have been aiming the blame darts at the very people the UFT is supposed to represent? There are a few explanations, which we'll get into another time in depth. But for now I will list two reasons: 1) the UFT basically agrees with neoliberalism and 2) what I often refer to as the "Vichy mentality" - if we don't cooperate with the Nazis they will destroy all of France, especially Paris, so we cooperate with the idea of preserving what we can." I am not equating this to cooperating with Nazis, but as a way of thinking the UFT engages in. For a while they called it the New Unionism - we'll cooperate with management - or Randi's favorite word, "collaboration." Pretty interesting since collaborators in WWII got their hair sheared off - or worse.

Here is the letter from teacher (T) to Randi, who forwarded it to Mulgrew, followed by Mulgrew's response, followed by an excellent post by Marjorie Stamberg.

Randi

I was wondering why the UFT is collaborating with the Bill Gates foundation in collecting data on how to establish an effective teacher. Over the past few years all in the name of educational reform, Bill Gates has undermined public education by opening up charter schools, he even went as far as opening up charter schools in public school spaces essentially taking over the school and displacing public school teachers. So with the growing number of schools being closed and then reorganized and ATR and senior teachers being harassed, it's no wonder why a growing number of teachers are becoming disenfranchised and only see our union as a dues collecting machine.

T

There are many good reasons but I have referred your email to the new President, Michael Mulgrew. -Randi

Mulgrew response:

Thank you for sending your concerns. As you have so rightly stated public education is under attack but more importantly to me our profession is under attack. The research project that we are entering into is one that starts and ends inside of the classroom. Almost all of the "reform" ideas that are being discussed both here in NYC and nationally are ideas that are brought from people who are outside of the classroom. I felt it was imperative that we engage in research that truly looked at what happens inside of a classroom and worked with teachers as the main part of the research. It is a way that allows us to control what happens in our profession instead of waiting for those on the outside to pound us with their ideas when they have never walked in our shoes. As for the Gates foundation they are funding the project but please don't confuse them with chancellor. When Gates finished the small school project they determined that it was not a success and that curriculum and school supports were more important than a school structure which was very ethical considering that the small school movement originated with them.

Thanks again,
Michael

Marjorie Stamberg lays out the position many of us are taking:
Greasing the skids: UFT participation in a teacher evaluation studyMarjorie Stamberg to ICE-Mail listserve:

Any "teacher measurement project" funded by the Gates foundation should start ringing alarm bells. What on earth is the UFT doing participating in this "study," as UFT president Mike Mulgrew just announced?

The UFT's "participation" reminds me of the" time-motion" study guy coming to the factory assembly line, and you're asked to help him out as he measures arm movements and clocks your bathroom breaks so they can use it for speed-up. No way.

What makes an effective teacher? We do not accept the premise that individually evaluating teachers' "techniques" is relevant to improving education. The whole emphasis on "teacher evaluation", tied to students' test scores, is part of the corporatization of American education.

The UFT Teachers Center is an excellent resource that works with teachers to be more effective in the classroom. They do some excellent PD, workshops, cooperative modeling and team-teaching. This is NOT what the Gates foundation study is about.

We need good professional development, and we are committed to teachers' lifelong learning, and use of the most modern technology and methodology in the classroom. But that is very different from what is going on here.

The education "business" aims to "cut costs" in the classroom. Beginning in the 1980s, nationwide the education budget as a percentage of the GNP was sharply reduced. These corporate chiefs wanted to get more bang for their buck. This means attacks on teacher tenure, getting rid of senior teachers to drive salaries down to the level of teaching fellows. It means, not "spending time" in the classroom on enrichment activities, on general topics, reading, discussion that goes anywhere except how to pass standardized tests so kids can be useful for the employers. Now, it means the proliferation of charter schools which by getting rid of union contracts sharply increase teacher time, and regulated salary increases.

How do you "measure" a good science teacher? I've seen superb science teachers teaching high school kids in the Bronx, without a science lab, without the most minimal equipment, standing up on a chair in the hallway and dropping a ball to demonstrate gravity! If you want to measure what makes a good science teacher, how about giving him or her a decent science lab and then comparing the results before and after? If you want to help kids learn, have decent equipment in every high school, smart boards in every classroom, give every student access to computers that don't belong in a junkyards.

Coming from Mike Mulgrew, as with Randi, this offer to "collaborate" on a "teacher measurement" paid survey is typical of how they now operate. Instead of just saying "no", and opposing something outright, they cooperate with it and try to "make the best of a bad situation." Then we're stuck with the bad situation, and they say, "Well, it could have been worse."

The same thing happened when seniority transfers was given up in 2005. Instead of holding on, they traded it for a raise and the result ...... up to 2,000 teachers now in the Absent Teacher Reserve.

The answer is a union leadership that demands massive new investment in school facilities, training, and resources. Can't do it because of the economic crisis? Wrong, this is exactly when they ought to be investing. They find trillions to "rescue" the banks. Right now, a quarter of NYC schools don't have gyms, and 70 percent don't meet state requirements for hours of physical education' Of all schools in the Bronx, 22 percent don't have outdoor physical education activities at all?

Where are the art and music teachers? In the ATR pool or on the unemployment line.

Related
The Labor Notes article on organizing charters in Chicago posted on Norms Notes.