The alternative to "there's no alternative'.
April 14, 2017 8:14 AM   Subscribe

"...the scare of the near-bankruptcy brought together the elite groups within the city, and enabled them to act in concert in ways that otherwise would have proved difficult to attain. The framework of “crisis” generated a sense of inevitability, making it seem that there were no alternatives. Across the Atlantic, “there is no alternative” would soon become one of Thatcher’s favorite slogans. "How The Rich Seized Control of New York City." New Republic, Kim Phillips-Fein
posted by The Whelk (8 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is also summarized pretty well in minutes 2:20 through 11:15 of Hypernormalization [TW for gore in parts of the documentary].
posted by klarck at 11:10 AM on April 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


"Despite the expanded role of private philanthropy, no one has privatized the parks or the libraries."

Shhhh! Don't give anyone any ideas!
posted by SisterHavana at 11:30 AM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


It is the 6 minutish mark on the Youtube cited above that really stuck out to me when I first saw it. I may be wrong speaking generally but in my own case I have not heard anyone speaking that directly about class war/bullshit from a position of ordinariness like that union boss in a long time. Since sometime in the early 80's anything I have heard or read that might be considered in the same vein has been tinged by a...contextualization?..of being fringe/unrealistic/overly dramatic/adolescent/wrong. I was 12 in NYC in 1975 and while I don't have fond memories of getting mugged or the general flyblown crumbleville aspect of the place I do find the current richy rich Eloi spa thing kind of distressing. Maybe that is the fate of any attractive place in this era, it is not meant for most of us just for our betters.
posted by Pembquist at 12:30 PM on April 14, 2017


3 out of 51 city council seats held by Republicans, highest combined state and local tax rate in the country, a massive health, education and welfare system they expensively fund but don't feel they can use ... doesn't really seem like the rich control anything in NYC.

The article is right that the preservation of massive public housing projects in the heart of Manhattan and Brooklyn is is a triumph of some sort, although it's mostly a triumph of converting 100,000-plus middle class Manhattan workers into commuting stalwarts of the suburban tax base.
posted by MattD at 1:48 PM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


> 3 out of 51 city council seats held by Republicans ...doesn't really seem like the rich control anything in NYC.

By my math, that leaves the other 48 seats to the other party of the ruling class, then.
posted by action man bow-tie at 4:15 PM on April 14, 2017 [7 favorites]


Kim Stanley Robinson's latest "New York 2140" has some interesting ideas on how maybe we could regain control of democracy all in a story about life in New York City after the sea rises 50 ft.
posted by Mesaverdian at 5:55 PM on April 14, 2017


. doesn't really seem like the rich control anything in NYC.
posted by MattD at 1:48 PM on April 14 [+] [!]


of course! that's the takeaway from MattD, our proud and brave NYC libertarian!

Oh wait

The average household in the top 5 percent earned eighty-eight times as much as a household in the poorest 20 percent. The fabric of everyday life in the city is shot through with that reality. The schools are more racially segregated now than they have been in a generation; parents in wealthy neighborhoods raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for basic classroom supplies and enrichment classes that the Board of Education no longer provides, but only for their own children in their own schools. Parks in the outer boroughs lie decrepit and crumbling; libraries constantly scramble for the funding they need. The working-class and poor people who most vigorously fought the changes of the fiscal crisis era were right about what these transformations would mean for them.

posted by lalochezia at 6:33 PM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've read this a couple times and I'm still not sure what to do with it.

This line strikes me:
Once public institutions have been created, they possess a curious resilience and stability.
Some do, some don't. Why were many of the interventions of the Great Society era so ineffective? Why did they crumble so fast, leaving a gaping intellectual hole in the left that neoliberalism is paved through?

Maybe the book has answers...
posted by ethansr at 1:03 PM on April 15, 2017


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