330 <strong>The</strong> condition <strong>of</strong> postmodernityNixon television debate, in which the latter's loss <strong>of</strong> a presidentialelection was attributed by many to the untrustworthy look <strong>of</strong> hisfive o'clock shadow. <strong>The</strong> active use <strong>of</strong> public relations firms to shapeand sell a political image quickly followed (the careful imaging <strong>of</strong>Thatcherism by the now all-powerful firm <strong>of</strong> Saatchi and Saatchi isa recent example, illustrating how Americanized in this regardEuropean politics is becoming).<strong>The</strong> election <strong>of</strong> an ex-movie actor, Ronald Reagan, to one <strong>of</strong> themost powerful positions in the world put a new gloss on the possibilities<strong>of</strong> a mediatized politics shaped by images alone. His image,cultivated over many years <strong>of</strong> political practice, and then carefullymounted, crafted, and orchestrated with all the artifice that contemporaryimage production could command, as a tough but warm,avuncular, and well-meaning person who had an abiding faith in thegreatness and goodness <strong>of</strong> America, built an aura <strong>of</strong> charismaticpolitics. Carey McWilliams, an experienced political commentatorand long-time editor <strong>of</strong> the Nation, described it as 'the friendly face<strong>of</strong> fascism.' <strong>The</strong> 'teflon president,' as he came to be known (simplybecause no accusation thrown at him, however true, ever seemed tostick), could make mistake after mistake but never be called toaccount. His image could be deployed, unfailingly and instantaneously,to demolish any narrative <strong>of</strong> criticism that anyone cared toconstruct. But the image concealed a coherent politics. First, toexorcize the demon <strong>of</strong> the defeat in Vietnam by taking assertiveaction in support <strong>of</strong> any nominally anti-communist struggle anywherein the world (Nicaragua, Grenada, Angola, Mozambique,Afghanistan, etc.). Second to expand the budget deficit throughdefence spending and force a recalcitrant Congress (and nation) tocut again and again into the social programmes that the rediscovery<strong>of</strong> poverty and <strong>of</strong> racial inequality in the United States in the 1960shad spawned.This open programme <strong>of</strong> class aggrandizement was partially successfuLAttacks upon union power (led by the Reagan onslaughtupon the air traffic controllers), the effects <strong>of</strong> deindustrialization andregional shifts (encouraged by tax breaks), and <strong>of</strong> high unemployment(legitimized as proper medicine in the fight against inflation), and allthe accumulated impacts <strong>of</strong> the shift from manufacturing to serviceemployment, weakened traditional working-class institutions sufficientlyto render much <strong>of</strong> the population vulnerable. A rising tide<strong>of</strong> social inequality engulfed the United States in the Reagan years,reaching a post-war high in 1986 (see figure 2.15); by then thepoorest fifth <strong>of</strong> the population, which had gradually improved itsshare <strong>of</strong> national income to a high <strong>of</strong> point <strong>of</strong> nearly 7 per cent in theEconomics with mirrors 331early 1970s, found itself with only 4.6 per cent. Between 1979 and1986, the number <strong>of</strong> poor families with children increased by 35 percent, and in some large metropolitan areas, such as New York,Chicago, Baltimore, and New Orleans, more than half the childrenwere living in families with incomes below the poverty line. In spite<strong>of</strong> surging unemployment (cresting at over 10 per cent by <strong>of</strong>ficialfigures in 1982) the percentage <strong>of</strong> unemployed receiving any federalbenefit fell to only 32 per cent, the lowest level in the history <strong>of</strong>social insurance since its inception in the New Deal (see figure 2.9).An increase in homelessness signalled a general state <strong>of</strong> social dislocation,marked by confrontations (many <strong>of</strong> them with racist orethnic overtones). <strong>The</strong> mentally ill were returned to their communitiesfor care, which consisted largely <strong>of</strong> rejection and violence, the tip <strong>of</strong>an iceberg <strong>of</strong> neglect which left nearly 40 million citizens in one <strong>of</strong>the richest nations <strong>of</strong> the world with no medical insurance coverwhatsoever. While jobs were indeed created during the Reagan years,many <strong>of</strong> them were low-wage and insecure service jobs, hardlysufficient to <strong>of</strong>fset the 10 per cent decline in the real wage from 1972to 1986. If family incomes rose, that simply signified that more andmore women were entering the workforce (see figures 2.2 and 2.9).Yet for the young and the rich and the educated and the privilegedthings could not have been better. <strong>The</strong> world <strong>of</strong> real estate, finance,and business services grew, as did the 'cultural mass' given over tothe production <strong>of</strong> images, knowledge, and cultural and aestheticforms (see above, p. 290). <strong>The</strong> political-economic base and, withit, the whole culture <strong>of</strong> cities were transformed. New York lost itstraditional garment trade and turned to the production <strong>of</strong> debt andfictitious capital instead. 'In the last seven years,' ran a report byScardino (1987) in the New York Times,New Y or k has constructed 75 new factories to house the debtproduction and distribution machine. <strong>The</strong>se towers <strong>of</strong> graniteand glass shine through the night as some <strong>of</strong> this generation'smost talented pr<strong>of</strong>essionals invent new instruments <strong>of</strong> debt t<strong>of</strong>it every imagined need: Perpetual Floating Rate Notes, YieldCurve Notes and Dual Currency Notes, to name a few, nowtraded as casually as the stock <strong>of</strong> the Standard Oil Companyonce was.<strong>The</strong> trade is as vigorous as that which once dominated the harbour.But 'today, the telephone lines deliver the world's cash to be remixedas if in a bottling plant, squirted into different containers, cappedand shipped back out.' <strong>The</strong> biggest physical export from New York
332 <strong>The</strong> condition <strong>of</strong> postmodernityCity is now waste paper. <strong>The</strong> city's economy in fact rests on theproduction <strong>of</strong> fictitious capital to lend to the real estate agents whocut deals for the highly paid pr<strong>of</strong>essionals who manufacture fictitiquscapital. Likewise, when the image production machine <strong>of</strong> Los Angelescame to a grinding halt during the Writers' Guild strike, peoplesuddenly realized 'how much <strong>of</strong> its economic. structure is based on awriter telling a producer a story, and that finally it's the weaving <strong>of</strong>that tale (into images) that pays the wages <strong>of</strong> the man who drives thevan that delivers the food that's eaten in the restaurant that feeds thefamily who make the decisions that keep the economy running'(report <strong>of</strong> Scott Meek in <strong>The</strong> Independent, 14 July 1988).<strong>The</strong> emergence <strong>of</strong> this casino economy, with all <strong>of</strong> its financialspeculation and fictitious capital formation (much <strong>of</strong> it unbacked byany growth in real production) provided abundant opportunities forpersonal aggrandizement (plate 4.1 and figure 4.1). Casino capitalismhad come to town, and many large cities suddenly found they hadcommand <strong>of</strong> a new and powerful business. On the back <strong>of</strong> this boomin business and financial services, a whole new Yuppie culture formed,with its accoutrements <strong>of</strong> gentrification, close attention to symboliccapital, fashion, design, and quality <strong>of</strong> urban life.<strong>The</strong> obverse side <strong>of</strong> this affluence was the plague <strong>of</strong> homeless ness,dis empowerment, and impoverishment that engulfed many <strong>of</strong> thecentral cities. 'Otherness' was produced with a vengeance and avengefulness unparalleled in the post-war era. <strong>The</strong> forgotten voicesand unforgettable dreams <strong>of</strong> New York's homeless were recordedthis way (Coalition For the Homeless, 1987):I am 37 years old. I look like 52 years old. Some people saythat street life is free and easy . ... It's not free and it's not easy.You don't put no money down. Your payment is your healthand mental stability.My country's name is apathy. My land is smeared with shame.My sightscape moves its homeless hordes through welfare'sturgid flame. <strong>The</strong> search goes on for rooms and warmth, somecloset hooks, a drawer; a hot place just for one's soup - whatliberty is for.Just before Christmas 1987, the United States Government cut $35million from the budget for emergency help to the homeless. Meanwhilepersonal indebtedness continued to accelerate, and presidentialcandidates began to fight over who could enunciate the pledge <strong>of</strong>1I1lf!illl!lll!lllljlllillll!!!l1 I 1r", '"o ..,1
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