Obama's speech demonstrated not only his obsequiousness before big business, but also his contempt for liberal and "left" elements, such as the Nation magazine, which nonetheless continue in their efforts to paint everything he does in a progressive light. This demonstrates not only the bankruptcy of liberalism, but its active role in maintaining the political domination of the financial elite over the working class.
Even within the framework of the historical traditions of liberalism, Obama's remarks testify to the total collapse of that ideology. In the Great Depression, it was taken for granted that the economic crisis signified a devastating failure of free enterprise and the mythology of American individualism. Even Franklin Delano Roosevelt, conservative in his political instincts and patrician in background, felt the need to adapt his rhetoric to that powerful public sentiment.
Roosevelt frequently hurled rhetorical thunderbolts against "the moneychangers in the temple." Obama's rhetorical bouquets tossed to American capitalism would have been inconceivable for virtually any politician in Roosevelt's day.
Yet Obama's performance before the Business Roundtable signifies not just a rhetorical weakness. There is a larger issue. Obama has no program to confront the economic crisis. In all of his proposals and initiatives, he presents himself as seeking "bipartisanship" and "reaching out" to competing interest groups. In reality, Obama is inviting the various factions of the ruling class to use his office to hammer out the policies that will best advance their interests.
If the financial elite, working through the Obama administration, is allowed to determine the resolution of the economic crisis, workers will foot the bill at a terrible cost. It is urgent that the working class impose its own solution to the crisis, one based on the democratic control and social ownership of finance and industry in the US and internationally. This is the perspective of the Socialist Equality Party.
Tom Eley
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