Barack Obama's Ambulance Wagon

In an attempt to defend the limited scope of the National Insurance scheme that he was closely associated with, David Lloyd George famously compared to the programme to an ambulance wagon - in other words on the one hand an emergency measure, offering services that, while limited, were life saving, and on the other as an implied promise for something grander and more comprehensive in the future*.

I mention this because the general situation seems oddly close to the highly limited healthcare reforms that, at the time I write this, appear likely to be passed in the United States. So instead of 'Lloyd George's Ambulance Wagon', make that 'Barack Obama's Ambulance Wagon'. Or perhaps not. Because, and this is both astonishing and sickening, the healthcare reform that looks set to become law in America is actually even more limited than the National Insurance system designed by Lloyd George in 1911. I'm not going to embark on a detailed, point-by-point comparative analysis of the two (in part because radically different societies make for radically different political discourse and social policy details, in part because the healthcare bill is so long), and I acknowledge that in some respects the reverse is true (NI only covered the working population, for example). But one of the main themes in the history of social policy is precedent (whether intentional or not), and as such one reason to look on NI as a positive development is that, although administered by private insurance companies, it represented a massive increase in the role of the state in some of the most critical areas of social policy. Yes, it was a conservative measure, but also a far sighted one (even if most of its supporters in the Liberal Party did not see so far ahead and would presumably not have supported it had they done so). Alas, the same cannot be said of legislation that (essentially) forces people to buy private sector insurance**. I think that the Ambulance Wagon imagery is still useful, but only if a little detail is added. An axel is broken and the horses are tired.

*Those that have seen in this evidence of plans by the wider Liberal Party to create a comprehensive welfare state are sadly mistaken. While Lloyd George's advocacy of social reform was genuine enough, the same can't really be said of the rest of his party. Serving the needs of capitalism and the 'British race' was one thing... a comprehensive welfare state would have been, well, Socialism.

**Just stripping it down to the essentials. It is, of course, far more complicated than that.

Demographic analysis of the New York Mayoral election - part three

Ethnicity and yet more cultural fragmentation

The final part of this little series concerns ethnic origin - which, due to the institutionalisation of the concept of "race" and the country's history as a beacon for mass immigration- has a slightly different meaning in the United States than it does over here. To a large extent "ethnic" means white immigrants (including and especially 19th century ones) and their descendants - non-white immigrants are covered by "racial" catagories (with several exceptions, more of which later). As whites (as currently defined) are a minority in New York only a minority of people in 2000 fitted into one of the census bureau's ancestry-ethnicity groups. The following a basic list in order of size:

Other ancestries - 53.2%
Italian - 8.7%
West Indian - 6.9% (the important non-white exception)
Irish - 5.3%
German - 3.2%
Russian - 3.0%
"American" - 3.0%
Polish - 2.7%
English - 1.6%
Subsaharan African - 1.5%
Greek - 1.0%
All other groups were under 1%

And now, the fun stuff...

Italian:

29% - Bloomberg 4
19% - Bloomberg 4, Thompson 1
12% - Bloomberg 6, Thompson 1

Bloomberg took over 70% in three of the four most Italian districts.

West Indian

31% - Thompson 4
13% - Bloomberg 1, Thompson 10

Irish

16% - Bloomberg 2
12% - Bloomberg 6

German

10% - Bloomberg 2

Russian

8% - Bloomberg 7

Polish

11% - Thompson 1
6% - Bloomberg 3

English

6% - Bloomberg 6

Subsaharan African

4% - Bloomberg 1, Thompson 5

Greek

7% - Bloomberg 2

At some point I may look at the same sort of thing at block-group level. Finally, something else relating to cultural fragmention... the percentage born outside the United States:

41% - Bloomberg 16, Thompson 14

Fascinating. It's quite clear that whether an area is full of immigrants or not had no bearing on its voting patterns - what mattered is who these immigrants are. For example, Bloomberg took over 80% in AD 45 (which has lots of Russian immigrants) while Thompson took over 80% in nearby AD 58 (which has lots of West Indian immigrants).

American off-year elections

Today is election day in the U.S - for a wide range of different positions at state and municipal level. Most of these are only of interest to dedicated election junkies, but some are interesting enough in their own right. They are;

*New York Mayor - while the result itself seems like a foregone conclusion (Bloomberg being defeated would be one of the biggest upsets in the history of the city) it ought to be closer than last time. But the reason for its importance is in the details; municipal politics in New York has broken down on extremely stark "racial" lines since Dinkins ousted Koch in the 1989 Democratic primary (and especially since Giuliani defeated Dinkins in 1993 - a nasty election even by New York standards and fought against the backdrop of the Crown Heights riot) and this has been as true of Bloomberg's elections as Giuliani's. But there have been a few indications that this may be breaking down to an extent, perhaps as a result of Bloomberg getting the rules changed to allow him to run again. While I wouldn't be at all surprised if such indications prove to be illusions, attention must be paid regardless. It should also be noted that there has been a marked anti-incumbent trend in recent municipal elections in the U.S (the recent Republican victory in Albuquerque being the most dramatic case) and that this extended to the Democratic primaries for New York City Council. Socialists should, by the way, hope for Bloomberg's defeat and not just because of his wealth and his status as a successful capitalist. Do not be fooled by his apparently moderate stance on national political issues - in terms of municipal politics, he's the leading example of the sort of vapid municipal conservatism that residents of London and Birmingham (amongst other places) should now be familiar with. He's unlikely to lose, but hope springs eternal.

*New Jersey Governor - on one level this doesn't matter at all; Corzine is the sort of worthless business Democrat (literally - he used to be the CEO of Goldman Sachs) and has (like Bloomberg) used his personal fortune to buy himself political office, while Christie appears to be an equally unpleasant Republican hack. But it matters all the same, in part because a Corzine defeat will be spun as representing a defeat for the Obama administration (and who knows what the knock-on effect of that might be), but also because of the domination of New Jersey politics by laughably corrupt political machines combine with it stark social divisions (some of the most disgustingly bourgeois suburbs on Earth plus wealthy seaside resorts combined with proletarian banlieu and decayed industrial cities) make its electoral patterns endlessly fascinating and unusually revealing about the nature of class and political organisation in the U.S.

*NY-23 by-election - I'm not going to go into detail about the ins and outs of this strange, mad race in the far north of Upstate New York, all I'm going to do is write why it matters, why it is important. The election coalition of the Conservative Party candidate resembles (or appears to resemble) nothing so much as that of a class early 20th century mature fascist party - and the NSDAP in particular.