Name: Listen, Liberal
ISBN: 9781627795395

Listen, Liberal

author of What's the Matter With Kansas, a scathing look at the standard-bearers of liberal politics -- a book that asks: what's the matter with Democrats? It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course. But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming. With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank's Listen, Liberallays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality.

What Hacker News says

rsj_hnOct 2021

No, the upper middle class is the one screwing everything up. Not the billionaires.

Want to have cheap healthcare? You can't have that with doctors earning 400K and nurses earning 120K. It's impossible. But you can have that with a few billionaires.

Want affordable university education? You can't have that with universities that have 3 non-academic full time staff for every full time professor. It's impossible. But you can have that with a few billionaires.

Want a genuine left party in the US? The professional classes are what co-opted the progressive movement, not billionaires.

Who does outsourcing benefit? Primarily managers and business process outsourcers. They are the ones driving outsourcing, as it creates a swollen professional class and the blue collar workers they manage are viewed as cogs. This is also why there is the rise of culture wars as the professionals need a justification to let them sleep at night as they screw the domestic working class, and that justification is that the working class people deserve to be screwed because they don't support trans rights or some other niche cause that serves as a moral differentiator between the urban professional classes and the working class.

Tired of the Administrative state? That's not happening because of billionaires, it's happening because the professional classes have extracted all that the market will allow, and now need to extract even more, using the power of the state to increase their control over society and extract more resources from it.

I recommend reading Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank. He has some choice words for the professional class, and a good history of their ascendancy.

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RubberMulletJul 2021

I'm almost 50 and I've bounced between white collar and blue collar work, union and nonunion, during my professional career. It is indeed depressing and was never more palpable, IME, than in academia of all places. Thomas Frank wrote a great book on this shift in Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?

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adamcstephensFeb 2021

Since I appreciate your list, here’s a couple more about the growing class divide.

- The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class - book, Guy Standing

- Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? - book, Thomas Frank

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scottlocklinNov 2020

The Democrats policies don't help the working class very much either these days. That's why the republicans have an opening, even on social issues. The 'whassamadda kansas' guy has made an entire career of noticing this, but nobody listens to him. Particularly hilarious in his last book, "Listen Liberal" was his skewering of the "microfinance" fetish of the "left" -aka, let's get the third world in hawk to American userers.

It's a titanic shift; I'm old enough to remember guys like Walter Mondale and Tip O'Neill who made Bernie look like an Ayn Rand fan; they were mainstream democrats who actually did help the working man. Now, even the far left are screeching ninnies who are obsessed with things which would actually destroy the working man's life more than the last 40 years already have.

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scottlocklinMar 2019

> "peer-to-peer lending service in India" (odd to hear the Christian and Islamic sin of usury being praised as altruism)

You might enjoy "Listen Liberal" by Thomas Frank (the guy who wrote "what's the matter with Kansas"). He takes the modern "left" to task for sucking up to capital, and is particularly hilariously venomous against the "microloans" that the modern managerial class seems to love so much.

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folknorNov 2017

If you think the previous administration was "better", you probably haven't read Thomas Frank's book, "Listen, Liberal!". Thomas Frank is a lifelong Democrat and an actual liberal.

It illustrates how US politics were hijacked, and the horrible policies of the administrations since Bill Clintons inauguration. If you are someone who thinks Obama or Clinton were "good" presidents, the book will dispell you of that notion.

I'm not saying the things you enumerated are bad things.

Personally, I am fiercly pro-NN, and I think Pai should actually be imprisoned (though there's probably no current law that would allow it, obviously IANAL), and the CFPB is something the US has lacked for ages (though I'm not sure if it has enough powers to enforce anything much).

But I am saying that the previous administration was actually not better, all things considered. And if you think so, the book will convince you otherwise.

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