America, after the coronavirus and the economic crisis, is a worrisome country, and this news is no reason to rejoice. This has nothing to do with the myth of the "alternative Chinese model" or the other myth of "the death of capitalism." It is about what some have come to call the "casino capitalism", which has taken hold of America and culminated an approach that has been growing slowly since the end of the Cold War.
Let us examine some of the numbers that Bernie Sanders cited in an article published by The New York Times last Sunday: 40 million live in poverty, 87 million are either uninsured or partially insured and half a million are homeless. The poor, in America and elsewhere, are the least able to quarantine and are therefore the most vulnerable. Poor African Americans top the list. Tens of millions are losing their jobs and many of them lose their health insurance with it.
Exaggeration is in Sanders’ nature, but, here, many who do not exaggerate agree with him. He says, rightly, that “the foundations of American society are failing us” while the shock of the coronavirus and the economic collapse are forcing us to “rethink the assumptions of our system”.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, de Tocqueville saw that the American experience differs from European ones in that Americans were born equal, while Europeans had to struggle for equality. Most Americans were small landowners who were not drawn to revolutionary ideas, content, as they had been, with the preservation of their property. Later, industrial capitalism developed without the misery and brutality that accompanied the British industrial revolution. This theory of Tocqueville's was often used to explain the weakness that marked revolutionary movements in America.
This is no longer true.
It is true that the economic crisis is not exclusive to the country and that the crisis itself may not be a sufficient reason to ring the alarm bells. However, it is supplemented by other factors that are ripping America’s collective fabric apart: since the 1980s the "melting pot", which was the source of everything great about America, began to cool. It has been replaced with what some have described as a philosophy of ghettoization, which emanates from plurality but may become obsessed with secession. Since America is a "nation of immigrants", it comes to resemble a nation of feuding tribes.
Indeed, as the US won the Cold War, criticism of this new state of affairs began to grow louder. Critics focused on three theatres of conflict: white against black, men against women and ethnic groups amongst themselves. The moments of economic detente narrowed differences, especially with the emergence of a black bourgeoisie and the relatively increased parity between genders in institutions. However, this tide was met by a stronger current that was reinforced by and rooted in economic crises: for example, instead of the old demand that blacks be allowed to attend white schools, demands for schools reserved for blacks emerged. Rather than demanding equality for women, women's superiority and men's hostility were emphasized, with some even considering men to be enemies. In general, instead of "we are like you", the rule became: "We are better than you."
Partisan life's mobilization also went very far. Recently, three-quarters of Republicans said they believed what the president says about the coronavirus pandemic, and 92 percent of Democrats said they did not believe him. The range of issues on which there is a national consensus has become narrow: the consensus that emerged after 9/11 was shattered by the Iraq War, and the consensus that emerged after the 2008 financial crisis soon turned into deep division over the solution: should the state play a bigger or a smaller role? The Republicans were radicalized by the crisis as demonstrated by the rise of the Tea Party.
The critic Robert Hughes, for example, had spoken, in a famous book, about the prevalence of "a culture of complaint": differences become barriers, characteristics become identities, the future that is aspired to becomes a "return" to one’s "roots", and each group has its "roots" and "victims" who had been victimized by "the white male." America, then, is going from pluralism to Balkanization.
Then, there is also a crisis of American ideology, so to speak, which goes two ways: opulence in moments of victory, "success" is glorified and the "nation of immigrants" is celebrated. During major economic and non-economic crises, the opposite occurs. The treatment of the Japanese in the United States during World War II has become a stain. The treatment of Muslims after 9/11 is another stain. The way Americans dealt with each other was a scandal: the calumny of this period exceeded that of the Cold War's McCarthyism. Under John Ashcroft, a religious zealot, the Department of Justice filled the mailboxes with forms asking their recipients to report any strange behavior on the part of the neighbors. That day, more than a million weapons were sold. With the coronavirus pandemic as well, demand for arms has grown.
In general, two of the pillars of the American ideology were shaken: 9/11 undermined the notions of immigration and religious pluralism, and the 2008 financial crisis weakened faith in the "American Dream".
The US is not alone in its neoliberalism, but its neoliberalism finds its symbol in its current president and his approach; that is, in confronting problems with self-praise, trivializing institutions' work, negating science, the populism of his tweets and conjuring up mercurial and contradictory solutions to urgent problems, leading to loss of many lives. Plans are unlikely, and there is no model.
Thus, it is the response to the coronavirus pandemic and the emerging economic situation that decides: either America is renewed, as a place and an idea, through a reinforcement of confidence in the government, institutions and science and the expansion of healthcare and other safety nets, or pessimistic predictions that say that the United States might witness its sun set the way the Roman Empire will come true.
