WI the West goes Left in the 1970s?

The 1970s are perhaps the most crucial period in recent history. Stagflation set in, leading to the development of what is today termed neoliberalism: a focus by governments on turning over decisionmaking to the private sector, weakening the bargaining power of labor, and expansion of market mechanisms into new areas of life previously unaffected by them. Today we take a lot of that for granted, but it's telling that no one took such developments for granted as they were occurring. A lot of folks legitimately thought that the U.S. and other developed nations were going to move to the left (be it by reducing the overall workweek, instituting a universal basic income policy, or allowing for more worker ownership in industry) as a result of the crisis.

We can see that in some of the programs of political parties and labor unions in that era. The failed plan in Sweden to transform capitalism into worker-owned capitalism, proposals for worker ownership schemes in France and Britain, the call for a universal basic income and Taft-Hartley repeal in the '72 Democratic Party platform here in the United States, etc. are all, in some way, shape, or form, missed opportunities for an alternate path out of the stagflationary economy of the 1970s and the return to market-oriented politics.

So I'll cut to the chase and ask a simple question - what if, instead of moving to the right, the West went the other direct, and moved Left in the 1970s? Instead of privatization, imagine a world in which common ownership and worker involvement in ownership and management decisions are the norm, rather than the exception. Instead of crushing student loan debt, imagine a world where all education is free of charge. Instead of a weak, emaciated labor movement, imagine a vigorous and competitive one. Instead of long hours and precarity, imagine shorter hours and more meaningful work.

How could this have happened? I've thought long on this, and I really don't see a POD in the 1970s or even the 1960s being enough to affect such a colossal shift. The basic outlines of neoliberal capitalism were in existence, in embryonic form, by the early 1960s at least, with the increasingly finance-dominated and international form of capitalism that we know well today. At the same time, I'm not sure a POD even in the 1950s is possible, given the extreme reaction in the United States, defeat of organized progressivism, and the like. I'd like to say that the best possible POD is somewhere in the 1930s and 1940s, but I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps a shift in how the Great Depression was itself solved would be enough to affect the Great Stagnation of the 1970s.

Thoughts, questions, comments, etc?

TNF said:

So I'll cut to the chase and ask a simple question - what if, instead of moving to the right, the West went the other direct, and moved Left in the 1970s? Instead of privatization, imagine a world in which common ownership and worker involvement in ownership and management decisions are the norm, rather than the exception. Instead of crushing student loan debt, imagine a world where all education is free of charge. Instead of a weak, emaciated labor movement, imagine a vigorous and competitive one. Instead of long hours and precarity, imagine shorter hours and more meaningful work.?

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Imagine collapsed economies...

Simreeve said:

Imagine collapsed economies...

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I'd wager no more collapsed than the economies of today, which can scarcely provide anything for anyone other than those who already have it all. The real standard of living for working class families has definitely declined since the introduction of neoliberalism (that was the point, '"The standard of living of the average American has to decline." - Paul Volcker, 1979) so I doubt that the introduction of a 'neosocialism' which gives more to labor at the expense of capital is going to 'collapse' the economy. It would certainly provoke later crises, sure, but collapse the economy? Hardly.

Pretty hard to imagine given that the only option for it was Jimmy Carter vs. Reagan. Carter was a conservative Democrat who was already busting unions, who themselves were already self destructing since they sold out the left in the US to appear patriotic; they had also come out against universal healthcare for their own narrow interests too, which effectively killed the New Deal really going anywhere further. LBJ and Nixon were IMHO the death kneel of the New Left and the start of the rightward turn. By the 1950s the GOP had stymied Truman and limited labor rights, so it was already turning against the Left by the 1950s.

Pretty much the US is going to be stuck in the 'middle' by the 1970s if Reagan is not elected and we avoid that 'revolution'. Carter finishes his term and probably gets a bit of credit in the early 80's for the end of the oil shocks, but will probably see the Iranian Hostage Crisis drag on. I don't know if that means a later Democratic loss in the 1984 campaign as a result or not. It probably means some military action IMHO. Let's assume there is a Democratic president after the 1984 election. Who? Mondale?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mondale

In 1984, Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination and campaigned for a nuclear freeze, the Equal Rights Amendment, an increase in taxes, and a reduction of U.S. public debt.

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I think in terms of social issues there would be a trend to the 'left' like today, but in terms of true leftist economic policies such as Truman or LBJ pushed we were finished with that. The Democratic party had bought into the more conservative economic policies by that point and were going to start to slide to the neo-liberal line, but much more slowly than IOTL; we instead get more budget hawkishness and less outsourcing, so the economic decline is slower than IOTL, but it happens due to automation and increasing competition from European and Japanese manufacturing.

The Culture Wars keep on and America gets more divided socially, especially as the GOP is probably going to push the Southern Strategy hard. Geraldine Ferraro is going to be a major wedge issue if she appears ITTL that may make the 1988 campaign rough, as it did the 1984 one IOTL. Essentially I think we avoid a full on DLC/Bill Clinton neo-liberalism from the Democrats, but its not going to be a leftist series of policies. We get stuck in centrism while the Powell memo plan is pushed and culturally things get ugly due to cultural liberalism and conservatism clashing hard. However without Reagan we still have the fairness doctrine, so we have less of a conservative media explosion that drove a lot of the 1980s/90s rightward tilt.

A lot of the pro-feminist, pro-gay policies of Obama get put into place much earlier, but America stagnates economically for the average family, unlike OTL where we've been backsliding in incomes. China doesn't rise without the outsourcing of OTL and we don't have the destructive effects of the private equity, Gordon Gecco, approach. I think we avoid the major bubbles of the 1980s and 90s so there is a steady increase in the overall economy, but some economic stagnation without the dynamic environment of the GOPs cutthroat economic policies.

Overall its a better country to live in, but its still not great and it will be clear that America's best days are behind it economically speaking. Perhaps there will be a new GOP message by the 1990s or even a grass-roots left movement that tears down the Democratic consensus by then to revitalize the left. Maybe the 80s are just pushed back into the 1990s?

The West did go left in the 70's. Carter in the US. Wilson and Callgahan in the UK. Trudeau in Canada. Whitlam in Australia. Willy Brandt and Schmidt in Germany.

Even the so called right wingers were pretty lefty like Heath and Giscard d'Estaing.

It was the reaction to all these failed left-wing governments in the 70's that brought in the slew of right-wing ones in the 80's.

>carter
>left

top kek

EarlofChatham said:

The West did go left in the 70's. Carter in the US. Wilson and Callgahan in the UK. Trudeau in Canada. Whitlam in Australia. Willy Brandt and Schmidt in Germany.

Even the so called right wingers were pretty lefty like Heath and Giscard d'Estaing.

It was the reaction to all these failed left-wing governments in the 70's that brought in the slew of right-wing ones in the 80's.

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Carter inaugurated neoliberalism in the United States.

wiking said:

Pretty hard to imagine given that the only option for it was Jimmy Carter vs. Reagan. Carter was a conservative Democrat who was already busting unions, who themselves were already self destructing since they sold out the left in the US to appear patriotic; they had also come out against universal healthcare for their own narrow interests too, which effectively killed the New Deal really going anywhere further. LBJ and Nixon were IMHO the death kneel of the New Left and the start of the rightward turn. By the 1950s the GOP had stymied Truman and limited labor rights, so it was already turning against the Left by the 1950s.

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Right, which is why I think a POD in the 1930s or 1940s is essential to making this happen, at least in the context of the United States. Perhaps the big-wigs in charge of the CIO don't quash the movement for an independent labor party opposed to both the Democrats and the Republicans, and it becomes a real force in the late thirties into the postwar period?

wiking said:

Pretty much the US is going to be stuck in the 'middle' by the 1970s if Reagan is not elected and we avoid that 'revolution'. Carter finishes his term and probably gets a bit of credit in the early 80's for the end of the oil shocks, but will probably see the Iranian Hostage Crisis drag on. I don't know if that means a later Democratic loss in the 1984 campaign as a result or not. It probably means some military action IMHO. Let's assume there is a Democratic president after the 1984 election. Who? Mondale?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mondale

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Like I said before, Carter represents the first real break from the New Deal consensus (though I suppose Ford would also fall into that category), so his engineering anything other than a kindler, gentler neoliberalism is not in the cards. Likewise, Mondale had shifted significantly to the right by OTL 1984, and became the first Democrat to run with more funds from business than labor probably since the 1930s.

wiking said:

I think in terms of social issues there would be a trend to the 'left' like today, but in terms of true leftist economic policies such as Truman or LBJ pushed we were finished with that. The Democratic party had bought into the more conservative economic policies by that point and were going to start to slide to the neo-liberal line, but much more slowly than IOTL; we instead get more budget hawkishness and less outsourcing, so the economic decline is slower than IOTL, but it happens due to automation and increasing competition from European and Japanese manufacturing.

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I don't think you're going to see the United States ditch the Cold War oriented 'free trade' policies no matter who is in the White House, frankly. Which means that automation plus liberalization of trade is probably going to put manufacturing in a similar position to where it is IOTL now, but maybe not to the same extent. A labor movement with more power would probably be able to at least coax the Democrats into making some changes toward industrial policy at least in the 1990s. Maybe manufacturing would stand in ATL 2014 where it did IOTL 2004.

wiking said:

The Culture Wars keep on and America gets more divided socially, especially as the GOP is probably going to push the Southern Strategy hard. Geraldine Ferraro is going to be a major wedge issue if she appears ITTL that may make the 1988 campaign rough, as it did the 1984 one IOTL. Essentially I think we avoid a full on DLC/Bill Clinton neo-liberalism from the Democrats, but its not going to be a leftist series of policies. We get stuck in centrism while the Powell memo plan is pushed and culturally things get ugly due to cultural liberalism and conservatism clashing hard. However without Reagan we still have the fairness doctrine, so we have less of a conservative media explosion that drove a lot of the 1980s/90s rightward tilt.

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I think this is essentially correct.

Germany and Scandinavia stayed left. ( Even Kohl was left compared to Thatcher and Reagan). If you can avoid the Winter of Discontent or Callaghan calls the election in October 78 then the post war British consensus stays intact and it remains more left leaning than OTL.

Not likely, the post war consensus was simply unsustainable. The neoliberal revolution could be delayed but not eliminated.

King Nazar said:

Not likely, the post war consensus was simply unsustainable. The neoliberal revolution could be delayed but not eliminated.

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Why? With a bit of common sense and planning the consensus could have lasted a lot longer.

Don't have the Big Bang of the 80s in the City (or at least keep most of those controls in place) and don't privatise anything that moves. State ownership is not evil especially for utilities. You just have to make sure that all profits are ploughed back into improving infrastructure and services (and NOT cutting taxes if state owned or NOT paying dividends if you insist on non-state ownership).

The real pie in the sky one is everyone pays their taxes!

Lindseyman said:

Germany and Scandinavia stayed left. ( Even Kohl was left compared to Thatcher and Reagan). If you can avoid the Winter of Discontent or Callaghan calls the election in October 78 then the post war British consensus stays intact and it remains more left leaning than OTL.

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Social democracy isn't exactly what I'm talking about here, and even Germany and Scandinavia have, in large part, privatized aspects of their economy and relied on more market-oriented decisionmaking mechanisms since the 1970s. Just because they practice a kinder, gentler neoliberalism does not mean they do not practice neoliberalism.

King Nazar said:

Not likely, the post war consensus was simply unsustainable. The neoliberal revolution could be delayed but not eliminated.

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I don't disagree with you on the consensus being unsustainable. What I question is that the prerogatives of capital had to win out in the breakdown of that system. It seems to me that, given the isolation of and destruction of the Western Left (not social democracy, which was always a centrist movement, hence the original 'Third Way' positioning against socialism and capitalism alike) in the 1930s and 1940s, (or even further back, if you want to ascribe the movement's decline to the takeover of it by agents primarily concerned with Soviet foreign policy during the Stalinist period) the crisis was bound to end in a way unfavorable to labor and much more favorable to capital.

Population dynamics without the rightward economic push in the U.S. from the Ford years likely ensures an unprecedented fiscal crisis in the United States by 2000, especially if socially liberal policies on women in the work place take off a decade or more sooner than in our timeline. The country is left ruined, and the USSR has its triumph.

Wendell said:

Population dynamics without the rightward economic push in the U.S. from the Ford years likely ensures an unprecedented fiscal crisis in the United States by 2000, especially if socially liberal policies on women in the work place take off a decade or moresooner than in our timeline. The country is left ruined, and the USSR has its triumph.

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Could you elaborate, please?

Asnys said:

Could you elaborate, please?

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Sure. We see an earlier dropping off in the U.S. birthrate, and a slowing in economic growth, as no amount of plausible protectionism is going to stop the rise of relatively free developing world economies. The slower economic growth in the U.S. takes its toll on immigration into the country, and the earlier successes of feminism drive down birthrates. Taken together, these will make the likely larger U.S. welfare state even less sustainable than it is today, which means that defense would have to be rolled back to make up the difference, but that won't last. At the end of the day, each worker will be taxed the retirement and healthcare of multiple retirees all but assuring permanent economic stagnation at best, and economic collapse at worst.

Wendell said:

Sure. We see an earlier dropping off in the U.S. birthrate, and a slowing in economic growth, as no amount of plausible protectionism is going to stop the rise of relatively free developing world economies. The slower economic growth in the U.S. takes its toll on immigration into the country, and the earlier successes of feminism drive down birthrates. Taken together, these will make the likely larger U.S. welfare state even less sustainable than it is today, which means that defense would have to be rolled back to make up the difference, but that won't last. At the end of the day, each worker will be taxed the retirement and healthcare of multiple retirees all but assuring permanent economic stagnation at best, and economic collapse at worst.

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Leaving aside the question of economic growth, which is a very complex issue, I'm not convinced the demographic crisis would hit in 2000. The baby-boomers don't start to retire until 2010, a decade later, and I would expect it to take a few years for the wheels to come off. In addition, you're assuming the further leftward turn takes the form of more social welfare spending, and a lot of it. While it might ("a world where all education is free of charge", "universal minimum income"), there are other possible routes to a leftier economics, e.g. worker ownership of enterprises.

Furthermore, even if the crisis does come in 2000, that's a little late for the Soviet Union to take advantage of it.

Asnys said:

Leaving aside the question of economic growth, which is a very complex issue, I'm not convinced the demographic crisis would hit in 2000. The baby-boomers don't start to retire until 2010, a decade later, and I would expect it to take a few years for the wheels to come off. In addition, you're assuming the further leftward turn takes the form of more social welfare spending, and a lot of it. While it might ("a world where all education is free of charge", "universal minimum income"), there are other possible routes to a leftier economics, e.g. worker ownership of enterprises.

Furthermore, even if the crisis does come in 2000, that's a little late for the Soviet Union to take advantage of it.

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The crisis with the boomers looming starts earlier due to lower birthrates in the seventies making those who retire in the nineties far more expensive to support.

Widespread worker ownership of enterprises is ASB in the U.S. any time after the Great Depression in OTL, and even before that it's immensely difficult to do with a POD after 1865.

King Nazar said:

Not likely, the post war consensus was simply unsustainable.

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No it isn't. Why would it be?

Wendell said:

Widespread worker ownership of enterprises is ASB in the U.S. any time after the Great Depression in OTL, and even before that it's immensely difficult to do with a POD after 1865.

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No it isn't.

Please elaborate your reasons for this strange belief.

Alternate History Geek said:

No it isn't. Why would it be?

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Decline in population growth, relative economic growth, the decline of large families, and rise of couples marrying later, and a rate of retirement excceding births and workforce entry.