Clinton's Liberalism: No Model for the Left

Abstract

The U.S. economy has become a model for the world, with the most minimal of welfare states, the weakest of regulations, and the maximum of freedom for private capital to do as it pleases. The IMF and World Bank have brought the model to the South, and the architects of European economic union are bringing it - slowly, and not without popular resistance - to the cosseted welfare states of the EU. Maybe Henry Luce was right about the American Century after all. Not only has the U.S. economy become a model for the world, at least among elite academics and policymakers, the U.S. political system is even gaining admirers. And Bill Clinton and his Democratic Party have become objects of study, and even admiration, for left-of-centre parties. What exactly does this mean?'