Death of the Liberal Class

An interesting discussion on Grit TV (hat tip: Naked Capitalism) with Chris Hedges, on the death of Liberalism (in the American sense of the word.) It is a bit long, gentle, highbrow, well spoken and historical; and it contains a number of interesting, and troubling, insights. Among the many are these:

"There were two reactions to the global crisis in the 1930s. One resulted in Fascism; and the other resulted in the New Deal. The reason we got the New Deal was because we had powerful, radical social movements with broad social visions, and the guts to stand up and fight back. And those movements, with the complicity of the Liberal class, have been destroyed."

Or

"When we saw the rise of globalism, the dismantling of the regulations that had served as bulwarks not only to protect the marketplace, but ultimately to protect democracy, lifted, the liberal class did not have the fortitude to fight back."

And

The only thing that kept the liberal class honest was the radical left, and that once you destroyed and gutted the radical left, the liberal class evolved into a class of courtiers: hedonists of power who speak one way and act in another. The Democratic Party is the poster child for this.

The very same could be said, we would add, of Britain's New Labour, which took capitulation to the City of London to new levels. More optimistically, there is this.

"If I didn't have hope, I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't write this stuff. Hope has, Augustine says, two beautiful daughters: courage, and anger. Anger because of the way things are, and courage to see that they don't remain the way they are."

And this contains many more interesting snippets. Watch it here: