Tony Judt

In "Ill Fares The Land," Tony Judt, one of our leading historians and thinkers, reveals how we have arrived at our present dangerously confused moment and offers the language we need to address our common needs, rejecting the nihilistic individualism of the far right and the debunked socialism of the past. To find a way forward, Judt argues that we must look to our not so distant past and to social democracy in action: to re-enshrining fairness over mere efficiency.

Ill Fares the Land

Danu Poyner

Judt's last book is a wonderful and welcome farewell gift and call to action for young people with a public conscience. Written in Judt's characteristically clear and conversational style, he points to what is deeply amiss in our societies today and why this is so. He neatly sidesteps the usual binaries in such arguments while not shying away from declaring his own position and arguing for it. For anyone who cares genuinely about the health of modern society, to read Ill Fares the Land is to feel a creeping sense of righteous indignation while never surrendering hope to the easy temptation of cynical passivity. This is exactly what is needed just now, and the fact that the 'What is to be done?' chapter is frustratingly weak and tautological only reinforces Judt's broader point that the young will need to develop new social and political categories and a new vocabulary of ends with which to tackle tomorrow's challenges. His urging that we go out and do precisely this, backed by his masterful and urgent reading of social and political history, cannot fail to put wind in one's sails.

Bryan Alexander

Ill Fares the Land is passionate, brooding, ultimately hopeful analysis of Western politics. Judt applies his vast knowledge of the 20th century to political recommendations.

Remarkably, this is a short, elegant book. Drawn from speeches, it aims at a general, non-academic audience. Judt compresses huge swathes of history, economics, and ideology into brief, accessible chapters.

Ill Fares the Land is a jeremiad against neoliberalism. From the title/epigram on (Goldsmith: "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey/ Where wealth accumulates, and men decay") the book rails against our culture's current embrace of market thinking. We've extended the market to many sectors of life, and this has had ultimately disastrous effects. The financial crisis of 2008 and following economic stall are Judt's killer evidence.

The book's main focus is "the West", primarily Britain, the United States, and France. In that respect Ill Fares the Land makes a nice companion piece to Piketty's Capital (my review). Both reference other nations - Judt is, unsurprisingly for the author of Postwar, very comfortable with the rest of Europe and also some of the former Soviet Union - but the West remains the main arena.

To sum up: the rise of neoliberal thinking (although Judt doesn't use the n-word) has lead to a massive decline of people's trust in each other (66), especially in non-homogeneous societies (70). Things used to be better, especially in the 1945-1980 era. Not perfect: Judt is careful to criticize bad bureaucracies (82). But cradle-to-grace welfare states worked built decent societies, healing the terrors seared in by economic collapse and global wars. This depended on a massively expanded state, and a popular engagement with politics and government.

Then came the 1960s, and baby boomers. Growing up without any lived experience of 1914-1945's horrors, this new generation didn't appreciate the apparatus which built their very good life. They turned away from its supporting politics in favor of identity politics, hyperindividualism, disengagement, and ultimately an embrace of the market. 
This is not to say that a new generation of radicals was insensitive to injustice or political malfeasance: the Vietnam protests and the race riots of the '60s were not insignificant. But they were divorced from any sense of collective purpose, being rather understood as extensions of individual self-expression and anger. (90)
Judt here sounds a bit like an Old Left party activist, or Ralph Nader, or an American conservative. He even cites Camille Paglia (85). He really hates boomers.

After two generations of Keynesian economics, the West turned instead to Hayek, Schumpeter (creative destruction) and von Mises. First came revolutionary conservative politicians like Reagan and Thatcher. Next came baby boomer leaders like Blair, Bush(2), and Clinton, whom Judt slams as passive mediocrities. 
This cohort of politicians have in common the enthusiasm that they fail to inspire in the electors... They do not seem to believe very firmly in any coherent set of principles or policies... They convey neither conviction nor authority...
[T]hey are all Thatcher's children: politicians who have overseen a retreat from the ambitions of their predecessors... Convinced that there is little they can do, they do little. The best that might be said of them, as so often of the baby boom generation, is that they stand for nothing in particular: politicians-lite. (133-4)

These boomer politicians led a transformative wave which sapped popular engagement with politics, demobilized participatory coalitions (132), undermined the welfare state, and saddled governments with the costs of privatization's failures. "The outcome has been the worst sort of 'mixed economy': individual enterprise indefinitely underwritten by public funds." (111)
A key point here is that the state doesn't wither away, but mutates or is reduced to something powerful and grim:
The result is an eviscerated society... the thick mesh of social interactions and public goods has been reduced to a minimum, with nothing except authority and obedience binding the citizen to the state. (118)

Let me share more on this last point, which is striking and not fully developed elsewhere in the book. This is, I think, the dark heart of Judt's vision:
[I]t was first and above all the dream of Jacobins, Bolsheviks and Nazis: if there is nothing that binds us together as a community or society, then we are utterly dependent upon the state. Governments that are too weak or discredited to act through their citizens are more likely to seek their ends by other means: by exhorting, cajoling, threatening and ultimately coercing people to obey them. The loss of social purpose articulated through public services actually increases the unrestrained powers of the over-mighty state. (119)
This makes for powerful insight into the age of drone warfare, government surveillance, and global war on terror.

So what is to be done? Judt asks this classic question, and, to his credit, offers a program. He wants us to set aside the term "socialism" and instead inscribe "social democracy" on our banners. Target #1: "the reduction of inequality must come first." (184) And her Judt offers a fine, brief account as to why:
Whether in Delhi or Detroit, the poor and permanently underprivileged cannot expect justice. They cannot secure medical treatment and their lives are accordingly reduced in length and potential. They cannot get a good education, and without that they cannot hope for even minimally secure employment - much less participation in the culture and civilization of their society. (184)That's a handy passage to have ready when people wonder what's so bad about growing inequality.

Making this movement happen entails re-igniting public debates about what kind of government powers we want and accept. "We need to rediscover how to talk about change: how to imagine very different arrangements for ourselves, free of the dangerous can of 'revolution'". (153) (That last point is key: no calls for uprisings, here, despite the book's final citation of Marx) Judt doesn't want neo-social-democrats to slavishly celebrate state power; citing James Scott, he understands that the state fumbles (201). But he still wants us to reorganize the state against the market.

A key part of the program is, intriguingly, literally, conservative. For Judt the right is the radical change agent, so the left/neo-social-democrats can argue for conserving the welfare state. This is something we need to figure out how to celebrate, not just to defend. "The Left has always had something to conserve." (222)

Another essential element is, well, scaring people. Judt wants us to remember the terrors of world war and depression, and to remind people of "the ease with which any society can descend into Hobbesian nightmares of unrestrained atrocity and violence." He cites the 1990s Yugoslavian wars as a ready example. "[I]f social democracy has a future, it will be as a social democracy of fear" ! (221)

And this neo-social-democratic movement needs to convince the young. That's where the greatest possibilities lie. Judt seems to have given up on baby boomers, and has no notice for my generation X.

So what did I make of Ill Fares the Land, and should you read it?

The book is a pleasure to read. It's very well organized and accessible. Judt's style is elegant and concise. He's also very pithy and quotable, as I've shared above. Here's another fun sample: Whatever Americans fondly believe, their government has always had its fingers in the economic pie. What distinguishes the USA from every other developed country has been the widespread belief to the contrary. (200)

His analysis is valuable and timely. Like I said earlier, Judt goes well with Piketty, complementing the Frenchman's economic focus. And boomer-bashing goes down well for people of my generation (X; born 1967).

His neo-social-democratic program is intriguing. In the American scene it's counterintuitive in many ways, although it chimes in nicely with Obama's Affordable Care Act. It would lead us to defend Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Judt also offers Americans in 2014 a welcome alternative vision to Hillary Clinton's Democratic dominance. And, as a student of the Gothic, I applaud his politics of fear.

However. Objections:

1: Judt's emphasis on the national arena (197) is wrong-headed, especially in reference to Piketty's call for global action. Not only is the world increasingly connected across national boundaries, but capital's mobility defies the actions of single nations.

2: his condemnation of recent politics fails to notice real gains. Civil rights advances for minorities, the successes of multiculturalism, women's progress, and some civil liberties gains are real. Setting them aside vitiates any left movement.

3: I was surprised at the book's lack of attention to technology. On the one hand, he doesn't make the Huxley/Postman/Hedges argument about entertainment tech seducing people into complacency. On the other, Judt doesn't see any possibilities in new media and new practices. That's an odd omission given present debates and concerns, not to mention the historical roles of technology.

4: I don't think Americans or Brits have the guts to go for the fear approach. The war on terror's terrifying aspects have dulled with the passage of time; we're weary of fear. Meanwhile, an aging population seems to prefer basking in the glow of the past's perceived glories, and the young have a weird optimism.

5: Judt underestimates the power of financialization in the US. That means both the huge growth of the FIRE sector as a slice of our economy, and the way that sector has boosted its influence over government, a/k/a regulatory capture.

Taken together, I'm skeptical of the program. But I admire this book, and commend it to your attention.

Ill Fares the Land

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