Sanford Schram offers an important, mostly clear, and often compelling critique of the penetration of market logic into nearly every corner of our lives, which he characterizes as “the new normal” of “ordinary capitalism.” He masterfully weaves together concepts from several disciplines to understand the emergence of a new “precariat” class, the political manifestations of “middle-class melancholia” on the right (Tea Party) and the left (Occupy), and the marketization of social welfare policy. His book is relevant to any political scientist concerned with the politics of inequality and social welfare reform, although its impact may be limited by its almost exclusive focus on the United States and its periodic descent into opaque jargon, particularly in the first half.
As someone who studies the political economy of development, I found the second half of the book to be the most compelling. Using case studies of welfare-to-work, drug treatment reform, school reform, and social impact bonds in the United States, Schram develops a detailed critique of business models of service delivery, measurable performance standards, the drive to transform everyone into an “entrepreneur of oneself,” and the use of market-based innovations to solve the very problems created by marketization. His incisive analysis of the perverse outcomes associated with these “neoliberalized” approaches to social welfare could just as well be directed at international development assistance.
Schram’s proposed response is “radical incrementalism,” which he offers as an alternative to the traditional approaches of the organized Left. Recognizing that coalition-building and piecemeal reform run the risk of legitimating the status quo, he encourages progressives to choose battles that can be won and help those is need while leading to subtle shifts in power relations. His refreshingly pragmatic approach makes sense not only for U.S. social welfare policy but also for foreign aid and development work.
I do, however, take issue with some aspects of the book. Let me start with the title, which suggests that we have returned to some earlier, pre-New Deal form of capitalism. While the balance between states and markets has certainly shifted back to the latter, states are much more institutionalized and possess far more tools for intervening in our daily lives than they did a hundred years ago. I would therefore argue that we have entered a qualitatively new phase of capitalism that may be the new normal but is anything but ordinary.
More seriously, the book’s analytical power is weakened by a few unexamined assumptions. On several occasions, Schram seems to suggest that there is a cabal of evil neoliberals cynically plotting to enrich themselves by marketizing everything as a way to discipline the poor and turn them into “market compliant” actors. I do not dispute that our democracy is seriously compromised by a small group of multi-millionaires who are distorting the political process through lobbying, campaign financing, and the media. But I am less convinced that “neoliberalization” is a conscious, coordinated plot; rather, as Schram acknowledges toward the end of the book, it is yet another example of incrementalism, often in response not just to national pressures but also to global ones, which the book almost complete neglects.
Schram also appears to suggest that realigning incentives, building human capital, and monitoring outcomes are necessarily dehumanizing and oppressive. This view strikes me as throwing the baby out with the bathwater. First, we have abundant evidence, including some provided by Schram, that we ignore or misunderstand incentives at our own peril. I believe it is appropriate for public policy to try to align these incentives in such a way as to produce socially beneficial outcomes, even if it means rewarding some behaviors and penalizing others. Most of the perverse effects that Schram rightly identifies result from privileging the short-term over the long-term and prioritizing quantifiable outcomes over qualitative ones. While market pressures make these tendencies more difficult to resist, I remain convinced that they can be overcome, and, in the spirit of radical incrementalism, would suggest restructuring rather than abandoning incentive-based programs.
Second, I would argue that personal responsibility and discipline are not, in and of themselves, bad. The problem is that they are unfairly applied and/or enforced (e.g., for the poor but not the rich) and without the proper support systems (e.g., adequate child care, decent jobs) to enable people to make meaningful choices. Thus, while these concepts have, indeed, been appropriated to serve the narrative of “deservingness” and facilitate marketization, they can also be empowering for individuals and communities under the proper circumstances.
Returning to radical incrementalism, I wish Schram has paid more attention to the discursive aspects of his proposed strategy. A case in point is “neoliberalization,” which is a useful concept in theory but has two downsides as a frame for pragmatic change: (1) unlike capitalism or market reform or even marketization, it is highly normative and therefore used only by its critics; and (2) it is particularly ill-suited to the United States where “liberal” has a different meaning than in the European tradition. A more concrete example is the style of the Occupy Movement, which has struggled to appeal to segments of the precariat who view tent cities, performative protest, and “bodies in alliance” with suspicion, even if they share many of the same concerns.
Finally, I do not think Schram gives enough credit to identity politics. He provides a fascinating discussion of the loss of middle-class identity, but he emphasizes economic rather than identity-based cleavages such as race and ethnicity. For example, he presents Black Lives Matter as a critique of how racialized policing has been used to discipline the poor. True enough, but I would argue that its broad resonance is partly because racialized policing (and, relatedly, white privilege) transcends class. Likewise, he interprets the Tea Party as an attempt to protect an idealized “self-sufficient self” that is incompatible with high levels of debt and social spending. But I would posit that this argument has been trumped by Trump, who has decoded “self-sufficiency” and laid bare the real concern of his supporters: losing ground to “the other.” Once decoded, the puzzling demand by Tea Partiers that the government keep its hands off “my” Medicare makes more sense. Given these realities, the defining challenge for U.S. progressives may be to build a broad-based movement of the precariat that goes through rather than around identity-based cleavages to arrive at their shared economic grievances.
