The Center Folds

High noon for the New Democrats

Joel Kotkin from the February 1995 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

Without fashioning a program to attract this group, the Democrats could well find themselves in electoral limbo for years to come. One critical factor lies in the decline of the union movement. Once the bulwark of the party, unions are clearly on the wane, even though they maintain enormous clout within the Democratic Party apparatus itself. Nationwide, unionization, outside of public employment, has been dropping precipitously for over a decade, most notably among the young. Today fewer than 6 percent of workers aged 18 to 24 are in unions. Ten years ago, that percentage was nearly twice as high.

The collapse of traditional working-class politics reflects a wider trend toward smaller, more decentralized organizations in the private sector. Since the late 1980s, the number of business owners has eclipsed the number of union members. Close to two-thirds of the workforce is now employed in smaller enterprises that have historically been non-unionized, including representatives of the most advanced parts of the economy, such as the computer hardware and software industries.

The boom in smaller firms is particularly true in California, a state which may well determine whether the post-1994 Democrats have any future at all. Rather than the economic dystopia portrayed in local media and, even more so, by the national press, California's current reality reflects the emergence of an economy that can survive and even thrive as the developing nations, notably in East Asia and Latin America, assume more of the traditional mass-manufacturing role.

The workers in California's new economy represent one of the largest new constituencies in the state. In 1994, nearly 80 percent of all California voters had at least some college education. Those making over $60,000 represented nearly 40 percent of the actual voters in California, while 30-49 years olds represented 45 percent of all those casting ballots. And, even in a Republican year, they proved quite willing to return to the Senate a pro-business, centrist Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, who reached out beyond the traditional Democratic base.

For New Democrats, in California and elsewhere, the lessons of 1994 should be fairly obvious. By building a base around emerging economic constituencies, the New Democrats can forge a 21st-century alliance that fits into developing class dynamics. Although such a strategy is denounced as heresy by leftoid Democrats, such a shift in emphasis is not at all unprecedented.

During the 1920s, for example, the Democrats shifted away from their dependence on southern and midwestern agrarians and embraced the new, heavily immigrant working class that emerged with the rise of corporate capitalism. An embrace of smaller firms and entrepreneurs would essentially return the party to its historic roots and class base. Although this offends the neo-Marxist analysis popular on the Democratic Party's left, the number of self-employed people now exceeds that of union membership. The grassroots action now has clearly shifted to the small proprietor, just as it had to unionized workers in the previous industrial epoch.

In California and other states, the DLC has begun, if slowly, building a New Democrat base. Members of the organization, for example, include many professionals, entrepreneurs, and others distinct from the old class base of the Democratic Party. Many of them are active in fields--such as biomedical or communications industries--where big government is seen less as a lever for advantage than a suppressor of wealth generation and creativity. Many also come from highly entrepreneurial recent immigrant groups who recognize that their future lies in expanding their role in the private, not the public, sector.

This does not mean that New Democrats need to be, as Jesse Jackson and others assert, little more than Republicans in drag. Unlike a large portion of the GOP, particularly the part shaped by religious right and nativist constituencies, New Democrats still believe in the basic principles of effective government, tolerance, equal rights under the law, and maintaining a strict separation of church and state. And rather than relying purely on markets, most New Democrats also believe that capitalist impulses should be targeted to help ensure that residents of ghettos and barrios have a chance to participate in the system.

By linking opportunity with responsibility, entrepreneurship with concern for social commonweal, New Democrats have the potential to fashion a message and program that could transform future American politics. That, not coddling an administration hostile to or uncomprehending of the changes sweeping the country, should be the highest priority of the movement if it seeks something other than a historical footnote.