News » December 14, 2005

Lapham’s Way

By Aaron Sarver

Lewis Lapham

On November 14 Lewis Lapham, who has been editor of Harper’s since 1983, announced his retirement. Lapham is the originator of the widely imitated “Harper’s Index” and the author of numerous books, including Gag Rule and, most recently, With the Beatles. He recently spoke by phone with In These Times from the Harper’s offices in New York.

What do you think is the most important issue facing our country today?

The most important issue is how we define national security. The administration likes to define national security in terms of military aircraft, troops, nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers. In truth, national security rests in the strength, health and intelligence of the American people. If we can learn to define national security in those terms, we would possibly reverse the trend of our current politics.

You argue that the United States has been transformed from a democracy to a plutocracy. Could you elaborate?

First you can see the rapidly widening gulf between rich and poor. In 1974 the ratio between what a factory worker earned and what a CEO of the same company earned was something in the neighborhood of 14 to one. Today it’s closer to 431 to 1. And you see there’s been enormous wealth gathered in the prosperous decades of the ’80s and ’90s, but most of that wealth has come into the hands of fewer and fewer people. The average wage of the working man has actually declined in the last 20 years, while the corporate pay scale has mounted to the heavens.

You also see it in the privatization of public infrastructure. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, it was still possible to associate the word “public” with the common good—public square, public school, public health and so on. And “private” tended to connote selfish greed. Now, the meanings have been reversed. Public is now a synonym for slum, incompetence, corruption and so forth, and private is the source of all things bright and beautiful—private school, private stream, private plane and so on. And so the impulse has been toward plutocracy, and it’s celebrated in all of our news media. Every week we get a picture of a new handsome, debonair, exciting CEO on the cover of Forbes, Fortune, or Business Week. They glory in the radiance of money.

You recently wrote, “It does no good to ask the weakling’s pointless question, ‘Is America a fascist state?’” How does the America of George W. Bush differ from the Italy of Mussolini or the Spain of Franco?

Well, it comes with a smiling face. We don’t yet have as many parades. I was borrowing from an essay written by Umberto Eco a number of years ago in the New York Review of Books, in which he attempted to find the common denominators in the various forms of fascism that were in place in the ’20s and ’30s in Europe. He was taking into account not only Mussolini’s Italy, but Hitler’s Germany, Franco’s Spain and Stalin’s Russia. Now all of those are different in very important ways, but there are certain common themes, many of which I’ve found in our own increasingly authoritarian government.

And one of those themes is the recent merging of religion and politics?

Yes, Eco refers to the religious elements in Germany, “the Volk.” It’s not necessarily Christian, but it points to a divine presence, the notion of some supreme leader and absolute truth. With religion you often run up against people who already know all the answers and don’t find any need to argue the point. This goes against the democratic ideas based on the Enlightenment notions of reason and argument. I listen to you, you listen to me, and between the two of us we maybe find a third way, as Clinton used to say. With religion there isn’t any, it’s either true and revealed, or false and heretical. That is a tone of mind that you do not want to have running your political systems.

Do you think those in power care about what dissenters such as yourself say?

They only care about it if it can take some form of political force. In other words, I think the Bush administration is beginning to care about the rising tide of criticism and the more general recognition of its dishonesty and incompetence. Observations that three or four years ago would have been considered leftist or extreme are beginning to show up in the president’s approval ratings.

Do we have any reasons to be optimistic about our country?

I think so. I have reasons in the many young people I encounter as the editor of Harper’s. More young people today are anxious to get into the political melee than, say, in the middle of the ’80s.

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• Reader Comments

  What Lapham says about religion, “it’s either true and revealed, or false and heretical” is precisely right.  Whenever I used to get into political discussions in the States (I live in Greece now) all Bush supporters, who were usually religious as well, had this mental barrier and were unwilling to even consider an opposing opinion to whatever their god, their preacher, their mommy and daddy or their president told them.  At least when I talk to Europeans we come to a certain amount of political agreement.

  Maybe things are different now.  A lot has happened in a year.  Though I can picture this one American chump who I got into it with one night about the war, who was ALL for it 2 years ago, now just changing the subject anytime the it comes up, with that dumb, drunk look on his face.

  Posted by m goodwin on Dec 14, 2005 at 7:29 AM

  Greece. Nice, huh?

  Those poor chumps. I almost feel sorry for the administration. What a bunch of turncoats. It seems to be true, for as long as I can remember that Americans want to be on the side that’s winning.  Like Homer Simpson said, ‘it’s more important to be popular’. 

  My guess is that all but the true believers (who may kill their family and themselves before questioning the Rapture, W. as a man of God, and Israel as a monument to biblical proportions), will simply act like they never thought otherwise , but that George and his posse were all crooks and incompetent boobs.

  The same people who would have turned me in to the Secret Service had they heard my opinions, will suddenly be whistling a different tune and saluting whomever the new “winners” might be. Let’s hope they’re not worse.

  Posted by wileywitch on Dec 14, 2005 at 1:24 PM

  “With religion you often run up against people who already know all the answers and don’t find any need to argue the point.”

  This statement is really much more true for ideologues, whether they are secular or religious. But really, to some extent, we all have the same tendency, especially as we age and our ideas become more set. For instance, how many people here think that their opinions on such things as abortion or the death penalty (not to mention the war in Iraq) can be changed by an enlightened conversation with another person?

  Still, it is fashionable on the left to slam religious folk and the quote above does achieve that aim. Kudos to LL.

  Posted by wolf on Dec 14, 2005 at 2:35 PM

  While agreeing with Mr. Lapham’s assessment of our current wealth disparity,I can’t help but feel that this guy deserves no kudos.
  Why didn’t he let his opinion be known while he was probably raking in more than 300 times more than an average press operator at Harper’s?
  Maybe,for some people,a golden parachute comes with a guilty conscience.

  Posted by Dr.D on Dec 14, 2005 at 8:43 PM

  I’ve been reading Lewis H. Lapham’s <i>Notebook<> in Harper’s for about twenty years.

  I guess I never stopped to ask myself how much more an accomplished career writer and editor made when compared to the wages of an average press operator.  In my opinion, his writing is better than average, and it isn’t his responsibility to correct the behavior of our national economy, but I’m a superstar in Plato’s cave, or whatever, so what do I know?. 

  I’ll ask Mr. Lapham----

  Mr. Lapham, how did your pay compare to the pay of “your average press operator”? And, why didn’t you do something about it ? Don’t you think you owe every and any body an apology for everything---past, present, and future? 

  Did you get a “golden parachute”, or did you just retire? Or something yet more sinister that I have not even imagined, (living in a cave and all)?

  How many of Harper’s employees are up the creek without a canoe, while you jet off to the islands where you can slap the help?

  How can you sleep at night?  Here you are TALKING about wealth inequality, when you have wealth--- a little too close to the topic, to talk about it, and still be eligible for ‘kudos’, don’t you think?

  Hope you can sleep at night without those “kudos”.  Confess your guilt now, and perhaps you’ll be eligible for a sticker.

  Posted by wileywitch on Dec 14, 2005 at 9:57 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 32 posts.

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