Submitted by Illinoisnoki1 on Tue, 07/03/2012 - 14:48

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By David Moberg,  In These Times June 20, 2012

Is Emanuel’s Chicago the future of Democratic urban politics?

During the NATO protests in May, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, by massing police forces, contained the minority seeking a physical clash with authorities. The next day the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times trumpeted “The City That Worked.”

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel rationalized every decision as a 'tough choice' (oddly always made at the expense of the vulnerable or workers) that he makes 'for the children.'

But for whom is the city working?

That was the heart of the conflict in Emanuel’s backyard—actually, front lawn—on NATO weekend. On May 19, an energetic crowd of more than 800 descended on Emanuel’s house in the upper-middle-class neighborhood of Ravenswood to protest the city’s closing of six mental health clinics. Emanuel’s budget-balancing has disproportionately cut human services—despite meager savings for the city—while keeping costly aid and tax breaks for big businesses.

In May 2011, Emanuel took the reins of power from the city’s longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley. The new regime represents another turn in the evolution of Chicago politics but also, given Emanuel’s prominence and ties to both Presidents Clinton and Obama, a potential harbinger of Democratic urban policy nationally.

Journalists often focus on Emanuel’s style—tough, impatient, foul-mouthed, intimidating, ambitious. But Emanuel’s politics more significantly represent a triumph of corporatism in a city where the contest for working-class support has taken many forms.

Birthplace of modern liberalism

In the late 19th century, as Chicago’s economy boomed, workers organized unions, anarchist and socialist groups, and labor parties. After the 1886 Haymarket incident, business and government cracked down on these movements, but a new, independent labor political party emerged, again forcing the major parties to compete for labor support.

Historian Richard Schneirov argues in Labor and Urban Politics: Class Conflict and the Origins of Modern Liberalism in Chicago, 1864-97 that the bargaining between Chicago’s vibrant 19th-century labor groups and the major parties birthed U.S. liberalism.

During the 20th century, two strains of “liberalism” competed for Chicago workers’ allegiance. One tendency, exemplified by Progressivism, the New Deal and the CIO unions, emphasized broadscale policy reforms. But it was the other strain, urban machine politics – emphasizing ethnic group allegiance to political patrons in return for favors—that dominated Chicago.

Both forms of liberalism, in quite different fashions, treated government as a positive force and addressed working class needs. But machine politics encouraged corruption, thwarted democracy, and mobilized citizens more through ethnicity than class. Unions split over loyalties to machine or class politics. At times, the more class-conscious reformers found middle-class allies who shared interest in good government reforms against machine politics, if not in redistributive policies.

From the 1960s on, race grew more important in the city’s politics, and the influence of class declined. After Mayor Richard J. Daley died in office in 1976, the machine slowly began to crumble. In 1983 Harold Washington took advantage of white machine disarray and black frustration (bolstered by progressive white and Latino allies) to win the mayoralty. A strong policy-oriented progressive, good government reformer, champion of labor and race leader, Washington, in his brief tenure—he, too, died in office, in 1987—represented a high point of robust, working class-oriented liberalism.

Unlike his father, Richard M. Daley—elected in 1989—did not like government, but he did admire big business. He privatized both services and assets (for example, leasing a toll road and the parking meters to private companies, and disastrously turning over recycling to Waste Management). He promoted charter schools and corporate-favored, anti-union education reforms. He turned tax-increment financing—originally designed to revive blighted areas—into a slush fund for big business.

While shifting from the old, dwindling patronage army to conventional politics oriented toward fundraising and media, Daley still provided contracts to old friends (even mob-linked) and pin-stripe patronage to professionals. He exploited machine remnants (especially Latino) and survived innumerable scandals (and subsequent ethics reforms). Never fond of organized labor, Daley also turned away from the city’s working class, whatever the ethnicity, in favor of holding and attracting “middle class” families.

Triumph of the Corporate Dems

Emanuel pushes Richie Daley’s corporatization of local Democratic politics to a higher level.

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