Reagan Era Readings

Steger and Roy

• Neoliberalism was birthed in the United States, then spread to Western, then to Socialist

• Major elements: Free markets, Free trade, Corporate power, Elite governance

• Law and order established through securitization (public security comes first)-

• Internationally - use of economic and military power to promote ‘freedom, markets and democracy’

• How is neoliberalism put into practice?: Raise of interest rates, Decentralization, Privatization, Foreign policy based on hyper nationalism and protectionism

• In all: the 1987 financial crash, 1991 Savings and Loan Scandal, the deregulation of airlines placed quick profits and high returns over the risks, leading to the 2008 economic crisis. Social programs getting cancelled.

Busch

• Homelessness

•  AIDS

• decreased budget in education

• Increased poverty 

• Collapse of the middle class 

• National debt tripled

• Reagan delegated responsibility a lot; he was a pragmatic politician, not an intellectual. 

• He privileged individual rights and democracy

• Importance of religion and traditional values of family and voluntary associations

Collins

• Reaganomics - link to neoliberalism 

• “Supply side economics”

• Largest tax cut in the US history - 23%

• A self-fulfilling prophecy - you blame the government for being ineffective, leading to a loss of trust in government and state.

Cavender, Jurik and Cohen

• Focus on how scandals are publicly handled in the Reagan Era

• Strategies employed: 

  • i) denial, 

  • ii) excuses

  • iii) justification and mystification

  • Use audience reaction to adjust strategy

• Iran-Contra Affair

Diggins

• Formation of US foreign policy regarding Iraq and Afghanistan

• After Vietnam and Watergate, the US administrations especially careful regarding transparency with presumably no clandestine operations

• Yet, US budget for spending in Afghanistan increased

Laham

• He vetoed the civil rights restoration act federal enforcement of the landmark federal civil rights laws passed in the 1960s and 1970

1. Limited the costs of anti-discrimination regulations on business, state and local government;

2. Limited the discriminatory potential against white males who were disproportionately represented on the job market.

Yet there was so much political opposition that he had to leave these laws intact.

• He took a stand against affirmative action

Denton

• How was RR’s public performance before the nation?

• Context - Medium: TV, Entertaining, A soundbite

• Context – Visual: How politicians present themselves, Image consultants, Camera angles

• Change in the nature of political participation - less critical involvement with the content

Ritter

• RR rhetoric - blends civil-religious appeal with a traditional agenda

• Successful as ‘the great communicator’

• Constructs political dramas with him as the superhero

• Use of speeches with delivery of the parable of the American hero carrying out the destiny for the US that God ordained 

• Intimate TV delivery - like talking to friends 

• Care with the visual dimension/presentation 

Muir

Product placement, masculinity, Geek culture

• Interface between politics and economics, esp. consumption 

• Product placement - placing product in TV/media, and thereby destabilizing distinction of art and commerce

Intense media participation + intense viewership

• 1950s - comic books, playing w. Toys, Sci-Fi, horror shows transformed from ‘sissy’ hobbies/not masculine into ‘cool’ w/o physical prowess 

• Thereby leading to the rise of a new image of masculinity

Jhally

• In the 1980s it was the most successful TV show in spite of an all-black cast

  • Apparent contradiction - blacks as they appear on the show vs. black reality 

  • Question: is it socially progressive or an apology for a racist system?

• The image portrayed in stark opposition to what was happening in the society

  • Criticism: Increases people's belief in the fairness of the American Dream

  • Myths: American Dream works; there is not American class system

  • Consumption becomes an indicator of class - elides larger structural inequality 

Collins

Four Achievements

1. Economic recovery through fiscal, deregulatory, anti-trust policies = investment in the wealthy (capitalists) based on supply-side/trickle-down economics

2. Bringing the Cold War to a successful end on Western terms

3. Recovery of the U.S. morale

• Reinvigoration of the American Dream and American culture → return of optimism

4. Slowing the growth of the Federal government

• Through deregulation, decreasing taxes (and increasing the national debt), and increasing the importance of big businesses

Rating Reagan -- Two Shortcomings

1. Drastically increased federal deficit

2. Failure to heal nation’s social wounds 

• Racism, inequality, discrimination

• Increasing polarization within society during the 1980s

Impact

• Dramatic shift to the right

• Conservatism associated with preserving the status quo and benefiting the rich

• Democratic Party tries to adjust to the new popularity of the conservative mainstream ⇒ shift to the right as well

  • Democratic Party becomes more neoliberal

Ehrman

• Federal spending goes down → needs of citizens are pushed down to the state level

  • Role of federal government decreases

  • Jobs and retirement funds become less secure

• Fast-paced, hyper-competitive, technology-embracing culture = everything becomes faster and more competitive

  • Contributes to lots of stress in American society

Shaanan

• Economic freedom becomes synonymous with freedom itself

  • The freedom to “consume equally”

    • Contributes to increasing debt for large portions of the population (credit card debt, student loan debt, mortgage debt)

    • Equality of consumption ignores differences in income/wealth

  • Everything’s value determined by its economic costs/benefits

• American Dream becomes stratified

  • Not true for poor

• Change in values

  • Consumption as culture

  • Materialism as a public philosophy = people judged by the amount of money they have and spend

Krippner

• This is the time when finance becomes the new field

• Significance of individualism in American political economy- when people lost their jobs due to the economic crisis, they blamed themselves, not the systemic causes

• Main argument: financialization is the current underlying shift in the U.S. economy 

  • Financial activities become the most important economic activity

  • Market less stable - “boom and bust”

  • Small vs big buisness

  • Pop culture

• End result-shareholders=happy, citizens & taxpayers=unhappy

Somers and Block

• How do you sell what happens economically to society at large?

  • Privileging market forces while arguing that this is the natural way things work

  • Market forces are thought to be natural and inevitable 

  • Demean and marginalize the opposition, or those who do not or cannot accept this state of affairs 

  • A dichotomy which glorifies the rich and demeans the poor 

• Key term - market fundamentalism 

  • Market thought to be the foundation of everything

• The perversity thesis - the undeserving poor are there because they are lazy, immoral, exploitative (e.g. “welfare queens”)

Steger and Roy

• The same market orientation continues despite the change to Democratic Party with Clinton’s presidency

• Three priorities: 

  • 1) social growth through trade not war (global trade), “market globalism;”

  • 2) private sector should lead economic growth

  • 3) socially progressive agenda

• Clinton era got rid of four things from the first wave of neoliberalism 

  • Hyperpatriotism and militarism

  • Attachment to old traditional family values

  • Disdain for multiculturalism

  • Neglect of environmental issues

• Second Wave of Neoliberalism:

  • material progress

  • individual freedom and democracy

  • Progress is redefined as penetration into global markets, democracy equated to consumption 

• Increased social polarization not only in the US, but also the rest of the world

Baker

• Focuses on the crises that emerge with the spread of neoliberalism to the globe

  • 1995 Tequila Crisis (Mexico) 

  • 1997 East Asian Crisis

  • 1998 Russian Crisis

All these countries/regions go through currency devaluations as their domestic economies cannot withstand the global forces of neoliberalism; 

• Increase in privatization trends, decrease of state resources/welfare

• Main social actors overseeing privatization of economies and thrift measures

  • IMF

  • World Bank

Kanjira, Thinkal, and Hickley

• The cultural aspect of the media framing during the period discussed, especially scandals such as the one with Monica Lewinsky; 

• Media Framing and Myth Production especially during the 1990s and the portrayal of the first Gulf War as a morality play;

• Political and military events transformed into mythical dramas, especially as (i) a hero’s quest; (ii) encounter with evil (Saddam); (iii) fulfillment through military containment, and (iv) return triumphant? 

  • There was no closure – since Saddam was not captured