"American Exceptionalism"? Decline And Stagnation Under Conservatism

[This is an excerpt from an article by Joseph Grosser at CounterPunch.org.]

Sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset in American Exceptionalism: a Double-Edged Sword broke its meaning down to five terms: liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire. Assuming for a moment that there is, or even can be, a wide-ranging consensus about what each of these terms entails, there are still potentially large paradoxes. Can citizens living in poverty truly be free? What is the relationship between individualism and populism? How much liberty is acceptable given the greater needs of society? What are the real manifestations of liberty when government and poverty exist? Can liberty and egalitarianism, even regarding opportunity, exist for all when the wealth gap between the rich and poor created by laissez-faire economics allows the few richest citizens to influence the law and politics of everyone? Indeed, one of Tocqueville’s other observations back then was ‘Today it is fair to say that the wealthy classes in the United States are almost entirely out of power, and that wealth, far from being a privilege there, is a real cause of disfavor and an obstacle to attaining power.’ It’s tragically amusing to speculate on what Tocqueville would say about the current state of affairs.

Plus, as Lipset’s full title indicates, there is nothing inherently positive in the word ‘exceptional’. A literal definition reads something like ‘forming an exception or rare instance; unusual; extraordinary’. Certainly 'exceptional' is often used to express superiority, but to say ‘exceptionally bad’ is as grammatically acceptable as saying ‘exceptionally good’.

That being the case, it’s plenty easy to recognize ways the U.S. compares negatively with the rest of the Western world. like with its astronomical incarceration rates, higher poverty rates, and historically much higher crime rates. There is the shabby two-party system that is so easily locked up by corporations and consultants; the bloated military budget; the rotting infrastructure (ranked 23rd in the world and falling fast, already behind every other advanced economy), a health care system that continues to suck in endless amounts of money while producing only the 50th best life expectancy in the world (according the CIA’s website 2011 estimate). along with the highest rate of obesity. The U.S. ranks 12th among developed countries in college graduation (for decades it was ranked first) and only 79th in elementary-school enrollment.

It’s worth noting that much of this decline can be traced to the takeover decades ago by the very conservative forces who continue to shout ‘American Exceptionalism’ off every available media rooftop, a takeover that happened to also coincide with the stagnation of wages for practically everyone except the wealthy. Unless a serious movement can expose this phony faith for what it is, who’s to say where it will bottom out?