A FABULOUS FAILURE

How the moderation of the Clinton era sowed a legacy of problems.

Academics Lichtenstein, author of State of the Union: A Century of American Labor, and Stein, author of Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies, approach their subject from the left side of the political spectrum. In this collaboration, they revisit the years of the Clinton administration, wondering why it moved so far from the quasi-socialist views of its early days to embrace a globalist neoliberalism that helped Wall Street more than Main Street. In the opening section of an overlong text, the authors offer an adequate review of the ideological development of Clinton and many figures within his administration, but this story has been told many times, including by Clinton himself. Lichtenstein and Stein are reluctant to criticize the Clinton years, so instead they focus on identifying a wide range of villains. They are initially unsure whether the Republicans who opposed Clinton’s early agenda were stupid or evil; eventually, they opt for both. They blame centrist Democrats. They blame the voters who handed control of Congress to the GOP in 1994. They blame various billionaires. The media. Larry Summers. Al Gore. It’s a long list. The authors believe that if Clinton had stayed on the left, and even marched further out to the edge, he would have won huge electoral support. However, that scenario didn’t seem likely then, and it does not seem likely in hindsight. The bigger question, however, is, why are the authors rehashing these events? If Lichtenstein and Stein are calling for a return to the days when big labor told the Democratic Party what to do, it does not sound like much of a way forward. The book may appeal to those on the left who are fascinated by their own myths, but other readers may take a pass.

A progressive perspective on why the Clinton administration delivered so little.