A Tale of Two Orders: From the New Deal to Neoliberalism

Abstract

points out the limits of a narrow focus on the police itself. Calling the demand to defund the police a “weak call for redistribution,” he believes the focus instead should be on the much larger sum of “tax breaks, land grants, infrastructure improvements, public contracts and other giveaways that are doled out to corporations and developers.” Concretely, Johnson stresses that the central task should be to build alliances that are broad enough to fight the investor class and its agenda of privatizing public goods so wealth can be transferred to the top. He proposes the establishment of municipal-level public works programs, inspired by New Deal–era initiatives such as the Works Progress Administration, as a way to begin rolling back the carceral state by addressing the root causes of structural unemployment. Various potential jobs that would contribute to the public good are outlined. Public transit could be improved through the hiring of more staff as platform guides and to perform needed tasks like deicing platforms and installing heat lamps. Other important jobs like public school repair, wetland restoration, adult literacy education, and more are discussed. The strength of this section is that the proposals are ambitious while still being modest enough that one could imagine beginning to build a real-life coalition to fight for them. The critiques put forth in After Black Lives Matter are biting but necessary as we consider how to move forward. The book contains the kind of historical context and strategic thinking that has for too long been missing in conversations about police brutality and racial inequality. Readers will find it to be a useful tool in the fight against the neoliberal regime of policing.