Neoliberal globalism: Crazily, it may seem at first, both Obama and W; both Clinton and Poppy Bush, fit into this category. This is because, no matter how they may have voted for abortion and gun control, etc, over the years, they all support this "official ideology of the political and corporate and financial establishments, shared by centrist New Democrats as well as by most Republican conservatives in their practice as opposed to their preaching...neoliberal globalism combines moderate conservatism in economics with the idea of beneficial U.S. global military hegemony."
No wonder the farther left wings of Green Malthusians/Social Democrats, and the farther right wings of Populist Nationalists/Libertarian Isolationists are driven mad by politicians like Obama, Clinton, and the Bushes. The latter campaign as if they're one way, Left or Right, while in reality they're the same way -- Neoliberal Globalist.
To further expand:
"Neoliberals continue to believe that at home governments should provide basic public goods like infrastructure, healthcare and security by "market-friendly" methods, which in practice means vouchers, tax incentives or government contracts for for-profit corporations. Because trade by definition is supposed to be a force for progress, neoliberals see little role for government in trade beyond promoting trade liberalization, providing a business-friendly infrastructure and educating citizens to equip them to compete in the supposed global labor market of tomorrow (in reality, most Americans now and in the future will work in the nontraded domestic service sector, immune to direct competition with foreign workers)."
Social democratic liberalism (SDL): Before Clinton's moderation, this used to be the general Democrat camp in the US (and Labor and Britain). Now it is considered by many to be merely European-style 'socialism', in a great misuse of the word. Supposedly, Carter's 'stagflation' in the US, as well as relatively slow economic growth in Europe, set the stage for repudiating SDL especially in America. Most western European countries, plus Canada, Japan...are SDL in nature, and these are the very countries most highly rated regarding individual happiness year after year. Regardless, the social nets of the SDL are now as frequently termed 'nanny state' crutches by those who erroneously feel that our current global financial crises are due to social spending rather than financial sector greed.
To expand:
"Just as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic crisis of Japan and the U.S. victory in the Gulf War shaped the neoliberal worldview, so earlier historic events -- the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and America’s extraordinary mobilization of labor and resources during World War II -- shaped the thinking of social democratic liberals in the mid-20th century and continues to do so today. As social democratic liberals see it, the Great Depression, the third in a series of major depressions since the 1860s, proved that industrial capitalism at both the national and global levels is inherently unstable, without intelligent government regulation and intervention. The abandonment of democracy in many countries during the Depression convinced social democratic liberals that an economic safety net, protecting citizens from unemployment, sickness, poverty in old age and other disasters, is necessary if democratic government is to retain popular support. And the remarkable mobilization of the U.S. economy during World War II convinced social democratic liberals in America that public policy was capable of organizing full employment and high levels of private sector production, even if market forces on their own were insufficient.
How do social democratic liberals differ from neoliberals? Neoliberals assert that the market is more efficient than the state and that it is necessary to "reinvent government" to include elements of privatization or competition. Social democratic liberals reject happy talk about the miracle of the market for the more realistic vision of the mixed economy, in which markets coexist with socialized sectors, in the form of social insurance like Social Security and publicly provided goods like public K-12 schools. In between pure government and pure market are government-sponsored enterprises and regulated private utilities, which if designed properly can be legitimate and useful ways to organize particular kinds of industry or finance."
Populist nationalism: Unfortunately, this category contains within it the greatest number of bigoted 'patriots' that distrust higher education. In general, these folks want to conserve cultural traditions and exclude anyone who might dilute the genetic purity of the race/nation/in-crowd. They tend to be exclusive rather than inclusive: for example, 'yes to Christians, no to Muslims'; 'I mean yes to white Christians...I mean white, non-Mormon Christians'...you get the idea.
Since post-1600s, America is an inherent medley of tribes and races. So populists must create an imaginary line around who is 'in' and who's 'on the outs'. Of course, WASPs tend to be 'in', and non-white/non-Christians tend to be 'out'.
This political stance will be a tougher sell in America as we become more Hispanic and Asian via immigration. However, Sarah Palin and her cronies will long have an audience within the Rush Limbaugh club.
"With its ethno-religious nationalism, its anti-elitism and its economic protectionism, populist nationalism is antithetical to the neoliberal celebration of diversity, meritocratic elitism and globalization, so it is small wonder that neoliberals direct most of their denunciations at populist nationalism rather than at other rival worldviews."
Libertarian isolationism: Libertarians want government out of everything and the private sector in control of everything -- even police forces! Thus they can seem leftist (yes on pot legalization and gay marraige!) and rightist (yes on guns for everyone! no on taxes!). They are also anarchist, almost by definition, if they are 'pure' libertarians (anarchy=no authority/government). Many people don't know that they are Libertarians (highly recommended for all: take this 'world's smallest political quiz' http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz to find out where on the grid you fall), since the Libertarian political apparatus is very weak in the US and elsewhere, and so Libertarians end up having to vote for political 'enemies' if they vote at all. Libertarians seldom are given a voice in public media or political debates. Ron and Rand Paul are currently semi-famous Libertarians, although most people don't know even semi-why. Tea partiers, btw, are usually a mix of Populist and Libertarian...
"Libertarian isolationism draws its adherents from both the left and the right. According to the libertarian isolationist interpretation of history, the U.S. changed from a decentralized republic into a militarized, authoritarian empire in the late 19th century, when the Spanish-American War made the U.S. a colonial power and trusts and cartels took over the economy. Every president since McKinley, they believe, has been a tool of a self-aggrandizing crony capitalist oligarchy, which exaggerated the threats of Imperial and Nazi Germany and Japan and the Soviet Union and communist China and now of Islamist terrorism in order to regiment American society and divert resources to the bloated "military-industrial complex." If the libertarian isolationists had their way, the U.S. would abandon foreign alliances, dismantle most of its military, and return to a 19th-century pattern of decentralized government and an economy based on small businesses and small farms."
Green Malthusianism: This is the worldview I learned at UC Berkeley circa 1984. It simply states that humans must follow known laws of ecology as applied to mammal species, and that infinite population and economic growth is impossible here on planet Earth even if it was desirable. Thus our current system of infinite growth capitalism, which usually includes the systems prevalent in each of the other four worldviews, must be amended lest global warming, global energy depletion, global environmental degradation, and subsequent mass die-off of species (plus billions of individual humans) upset our civilized apple cart.
The initial computer models supporting this viewpoint came about circa 1976 within the infamous Club of Rome studies. The latest computer models support the same views, just more finely tuned. Now the International Energy Administration agrees with Shell and Exxon that we have hit peak oil production, thus validating one key aspect of this worldview. Oh yeah, looks like they were right about global warming and environmental degradation/species die-off too. But this view's a hard sell to the Neoliberal Globalists, et al, because it means at a certain point in the not-too-distant future there will be no more business as usual until we right our planetary ship. 'No business as usual' sells bumper stickers but rarely gets many votes -- too much of a 'hassle' to change our economic system from the top down -- even (especially?) for leftists...
In detail:
"This worldview synthesizes mystical versions of environmentalism with alarm about population growth in the tradition of the Rev. Thomas Malthus. The Green Malthusian perspective holds that the Industrial Revolution ended humanity’s allegedly harmonious prior relationship with Nature, permitted an explosion of the human population beyond the alleged carrying capacity of the planet and threatens to produce runaway global warming, along with pollution, resource depletion and mass species extinction. In order to restore balance between humanity and the ecosystem, human numbers must be dramatically reduced. Green Malthusians disagree about whether restoring harmony with nature requires abandoning modern technology or using "appropriate" technology, a blend of pre-modern and modern machines and techniques that minimize the human "footprint" on the earth. Even though its lack of carbon emissions makes it an obvious tool for combating global warming, Green Malthusians generally oppose nuclear energy because of its toxic byproducts, and perhaps also because it did not exist in the premodern past that they idealize. Many Green Malthusians attribute virtue to the technologies and landscapes of the First Industrial Revolution -- the railroad, the trolley, the streetcar city -- and bitterly denounce as wicked the technologies and landscapes of the Second Industrial Revolution -- the car, the truck, the plane and the suburb and edge city."
So there you have it. There are ~5 (not 2!) competing worldviews raging in America, and at least a couple more raging worldwide (pure communism; theocracy as in al-Queda and the Taliban...). Likely the best approach for humanity, long term, is to use an amazingly clever mix of all these paradigms, elicited via sometimes agonizingly slow political change that meanders and oozes across the planet. Short term, however, we may feel the need to slip more fully into one of the five in order to solve a particularly nasty global crisis that requires a quick, unified political/human response. At these critical times, mobs may rule. Which gang would you join? And would you give your life for it? People have throughout all of human history. Your time may be approaching!=]
To conclude, with thanks to source article writer, Michael Lind, of The New America Foundation:
"If this is an accurate description of the most important worldviews that provide the basic assumptions that Americans bring with them into public debate, it would explain a number of puzzles. To begin with, it would explain how the term "progressive" can be applied, at the price of great confusion, to members of all of the groups other than populist nationalists. Self-described "progressives" include libertarian isolationists and neoliberal globalists, Green Malthusians and social democratic liberals. This taxonomy explains why social democratic liberals can share the concern of national populists about possible wage-lowering effects of excessive immigration, while despising and repudiating national populist obsessions with maintaining the supposed purity of the American racial, ethnic or religious "stock." It explains why populist nationalists and libertarian isolationists often agree on isolationism but not on tariffs or immigration. And it explains why pro-technology, pro-market neoliberal globalists who think they are devout environmentalists frequently discover that they really share little in common with other environmentalists who are ascetic, anti-modern Green Malthusians.
Most important, this explains why there is so little fundamental difference between the policies pursued by centrist New Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and Republicans in power, like George W. Bush. Neoliberal Democrats like Clinton and Obama run for office by posing as social democratic liberals; once in power, they carry out the neoliberal globalist agenda favored by America’s financial and corporate elites. Republicans do the same, pretending to be national populists or libertarians on the hustings, and then governing as the right wing of neoliberalism, sharing assumptions with Clinton-Obama Democrats about free trade, deregulated capitalism and the need for some sort of minimal safety net -- preferably a means-tested, voucherized, privatized one that requires Americans to pay brokers and insurance companies.
Half a decade or a decade of economic stagnation and global economic turmoil might eventually discredit the neoliberal globalist consensus, in the way that the crises of the 1970s undermined the earlier social democratic liberal consensus. So far the Great Recession and its aftermath have not been sufficient to force either neoliberal Democrats or center-right Republicans to reconsider their faith in the neoliberal creed. But alternate worldviews continue to find adherents, the century is young, and history is seldom kind for long to establishments and orthodoxies."
