A history that does not have a grand narrative, but is rather a one-damned-thing-after-another contest between very different protagonists and antagonists than we usually see in such books. Maier's...
“But a populist leader who lowers the taxes of the rich? That has always been a delicate tightrope dance, requiring both personal magnetism on the part of the leader and an appeal to nonmaterialist values.”
It actually requires a popular myth that the rich create jobs and taxes kill jobs. Therefore tax cuts for the rich means more jobs. Every time I see or hear something like this, my reply is that we create each other’s jobs.
So, from the New Deal we have Social Security, to relieve retirement anxiety, beginning in the 1930's.
From the neoliberal(?) we have Medicare, which was passed in the 70's, to relieve healthcare anxiety for the elderly. Then came an expansion of healthcare employment, and the vast healthcare infrastructure we have now.
Later, not sure of the exact years, we have Medicaid to relieve healthcare anxiety for people of age groups, not just the elderly.
When the Medicare bill was in Congress in the 1960's there was widespread fear that it would bankrupt the country, but that turned out not to be true. Somehow enough taxes were collected from the expanded economy that healthcare provided. There came a Medicare crisis, but I think it was solved by "taxing the rich". Medicare taxes are now paid on a person's total income.
“But the Neoliberal Order failed to deliver on promises of reinvigorated economic growth and a restored moral center of society. What it did do was raise income inequality and create plutocracy.”
Dr. DeLong, you are a true Smithian. That is to say, you care more about your little finger than the entire population of China. At least, I think you must, for the way you ignore the fact that hundreds of millions of people all across Asia have been boosted out of poverty over the last 40 year.
According to Max Roser, Professor of Practice in Global Data Analytics at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, in a recent post, “Extreme poverty: How far have we come, and how far do we still have to go?,” the percentage of the world population living in “extreme poverty”, defined by the UN as living on less than $2.15 a day, declined from 55% in 1945 to 34% in 1980, and then to 10% in 2018. That kind of sounds like “progress” to me.
Furthermore, even within the U.S., you entirely ignore the massive expansion of transfer payments and benefits to lower income populations under those awful neoliberals, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. In fact, one of the prime causes of the increase in right-wing populism these days is the success that Bill and Barack had in fulfilling the liberal platform.
Complaints about the rise in inequality largely reflect, in my perhaps jaundiced opinion, the resentment of middle-class intellectuals at seeing their prestige shrivel in comparison with mega-innovators like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and, yes, Elon Musk. Where’s your electric car, Dr. DeLong? As for innovation from the government, the California Bullet Train to Nowhere has yet to carry a single passenger.
Angry, but not always intelligent people at either end of the spectrum are bitter towards the elites for the massive policy failures that have occurred since 2001, failures that unfortunately implicated both parties, leaving neither able, or at least willing, to offer a meaningful alternative. The War on Terror was both an outrageous fraud and a total disaster, but the Democrats under Obama, not to mention Biden, have lacked the nerve to walk away from it. The near collapse of the world economy in 2008 had a similar negative impact, and even though the Republican record on COVID was far worse than that of the Democrats, the Biden administration did little more than blunder its way through the last big infections. And neither can resolve the immigration issue.
Alas! I don't think that Deng Xiaoping's régime is properly classified as "neoliberal". The Asian Developmental State is a very different thing than the Neoliberal Order...
Jeremy Wallace, your China Lab Newsletter buddy, who seems to think he knows more about China than you do, says Deng should be considered neoliberal, or at least neoliberalish, in his fairly recent post, Slouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (of Neoliberalism), reviewing your book. Furthermore, what about "not China", like India, a pretty big country, and the rest of Asia? And, further furthermore, going back to the whole inequality thing, what about the fact that, since the 1970s, the massive increase in the quality of consumer goods means that a very large percentage of the population lives more comfortably than the "big shots" did back in the day? I continue to suggest that liberals pining for the supposed good old days when they were in the driver's seat do so because they have lost status, in their own eyes, at least, and not because increases in inequality of wealth has meaningfully impacted the lives of "the people".
“The touchstones of political legitimacy are safety and prosperity, and perhaps a sense that your government is at the head of a truly worthwhile and valuable community.”
Might unfettered immigration suggest to some that whoever is in charge doesn’t value their community, thereby losing legitimacy despite continued safety and prosperity?
We had unfettered immigration from Europe and the Middle East up through 1924 (and fettered immigration from Africa up to 1807). Unfettered immigration is definitely not what we have now.
Great blog! The best stuff I get on Econ.
“But a populist leader who lowers the taxes of the rich? That has always been a delicate tightrope dance, requiring both personal magnetism on the part of the leader and an appeal to nonmaterialist values.”
It actually requires a popular myth that the rich create jobs and taxes kill jobs. Therefore tax cuts for the rich means more jobs. Every time I see or hear something like this, my reply is that we create each other’s jobs.
So, from the New Deal we have Social Security, to relieve retirement anxiety, beginning in the 1930's.
From the neoliberal(?) we have Medicare, which was passed in the 70's, to relieve healthcare anxiety for the elderly. Then came an expansion of healthcare employment, and the vast healthcare infrastructure we have now.
Later, not sure of the exact years, we have Medicaid to relieve healthcare anxiety for people of age groups, not just the elderly.
When the Medicare bill was in Congress in the 1960's there was widespread fear that it would bankrupt the country, but that turned out not to be true. Somehow enough taxes were collected from the expanded economy that healthcare provided. There came a Medicare crisis, but I think it was solved by "taxing the rich". Medicare taxes are now paid on a person's total income.
Link to Social Security benefits pages:
https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/agereduction.html
“But the Neoliberal Order failed to deliver on promises of reinvigorated economic growth and a restored moral center of society. What it did do was raise income inequality and create plutocracy.”
Dr. DeLong, you are a true Smithian. That is to say, you care more about your little finger than the entire population of China. At least, I think you must, for the way you ignore the fact that hundreds of millions of people all across Asia have been boosted out of poverty over the last 40 year.
According to Max Roser, Professor of Practice in Global Data Analytics at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, in a recent post, “Extreme poverty: How far have we come, and how far do we still have to go?,” the percentage of the world population living in “extreme poverty”, defined by the UN as living on less than $2.15 a day, declined from 55% in 1945 to 34% in 1980, and then to 10% in 2018. That kind of sounds like “progress” to me.
Furthermore, even within the U.S., you entirely ignore the massive expansion of transfer payments and benefits to lower income populations under those awful neoliberals, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. In fact, one of the prime causes of the increase in right-wing populism these days is the success that Bill and Barack had in fulfilling the liberal platform.
Complaints about the rise in inequality largely reflect, in my perhaps jaundiced opinion, the resentment of middle-class intellectuals at seeing their prestige shrivel in comparison with mega-innovators like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and, yes, Elon Musk. Where’s your electric car, Dr. DeLong? As for innovation from the government, the California Bullet Train to Nowhere has yet to carry a single passenger.
Angry, but not always intelligent people at either end of the spectrum are bitter towards the elites for the massive policy failures that have occurred since 2001, failures that unfortunately implicated both parties, leaving neither able, or at least willing, to offer a meaningful alternative. The War on Terror was both an outrageous fraud and a total disaster, but the Democrats under Obama, not to mention Biden, have lacked the nerve to walk away from it. The near collapse of the world economy in 2008 had a similar negative impact, and even though the Republican record on COVID was far worse than that of the Democrats, the Biden administration did little more than blunder its way through the last big infections. And neither can resolve the immigration issue.
Alas! I don't think that Deng Xiaoping's régime is properly classified as "neoliberal". The Asian Developmental State is a very different thing than the Neoliberal Order...
Jeremy Wallace, your China Lab Newsletter buddy, who seems to think he knows more about China than you do, says Deng should be considered neoliberal, or at least neoliberalish, in his fairly recent post, Slouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (of Neoliberalism), reviewing your book. Furthermore, what about "not China", like India, a pretty big country, and the rest of Asia? And, further furthermore, going back to the whole inequality thing, what about the fact that, since the 1970s, the massive increase in the quality of consumer goods means that a very large percentage of the population lives more comfortably than the "big shots" did back in the day? I continue to suggest that liberals pining for the supposed good old days when they were in the driver's seat do so because they have lost status, in their own eyes, at least, and not because increases in inequality of wealth has meaningfully impacted the lives of "the people".
“The touchstones of political legitimacy are safety and prosperity, and perhaps a sense that your government is at the head of a truly worthwhile and valuable community.”
Might unfettered immigration suggest to some that whoever is in charge doesn’t value their community, thereby losing legitimacy despite continued safety and prosperity?
We had unfettered immigration from Europe and the Middle East up through 1924 (and fettered immigration from Africa up to 1807). Unfettered immigration is definitely not what we have now.
A lot to unpack. However, I like what I saw.