Center-Left Betrayal

[gtyellowjacket]

The Clinton and Carter administrations should not have massively deregulated the airlines, telecoms, and financial industries to start.

The response of the Democratic Party to Reaganism was to move further to the right on economic issues. A leaner meaner government, the era of big government is over, etc.

I think Dems should’ve embraced the power of government to provide material good to the American people instead of buying into right wing framing about the federal government being too powerful, spending too much, etc.

History has shown that these deregulatory policies were utter failures, and they’ve only allowed the far-right to gain even more ground as I mentioned earlier.

When the ostensibly left party embraces gangster capitalism, it opens up a lot of space for the right to point out all the issues inherent within such a system.

Of course, the right has no answer to the plight of working people. But, for much of my life, neither have the Dems.

When people see government programs working for them, it changes their opinion about the government and what is possible.

Because of decades of propaganda and perverse policy, by the Democrats and the Republicans, a lot of working people think that government spending is bad. Or that the government doesn’t do anything good, it’s all red tape and bureaucracy.

Democrats need to get back into the business of using government to deliver material improvements for the lives of working people and messaging to tie these improvements to government policy.

I'll disagree with this. I think deregulation of the airlines And telecoms has been a net positive for Americans. And note that those two industries are heavily unionized so deregulation didn't heavily harm those unions.

I do think deregulating the financial industry has been a much bigger problem for Americans.

 

[SnoopRob]

The Clinton and Carter administrations should not have massively deregulated the airlines, telecoms, and financial industries to start.

The response of the Democratic Party to Reaganism was to move further to the right on economic issues. A leaner meaner government, the era of big government is over, etc.

I think Dems should’ve embraced the power of government to provide material good to the American people instead of buying into right wing framing about the federal government being too powerful, spending too much, etc.

History has shown that these deregulatory policies were utter failures, and they’ve only allowed the far-right to gain even more ground as I mentioned earlier.

When the ostensibly left party embraces gangster capitalism, it opens up a lot of space for the right to point out all the issues inherent within such a system.

Of course, the right has no answer to the plight of working people. But, for much of my life, neither have the Dems.

When people see government programs working for them, it changes their opinion about the government and what is possible.

Because of decades of propaganda and perverse policy, by the Democrats and the Republicans, a lot of working people think that government spending is bad. Or that the government doesn’t do anything good, it’s all red tape and bureaucracy.

Democrats need to get back into the business of using government to deliver material improvements for the lives of working people and messaging to tie these improvements to government policy.

I mean this kindly but truthfully...that's a lot of words but not a lot of substance.

The only real policy you mentioned there is about deregulation and you failed to tie that into unions and the working class in any meaningful way.

When it comes to good governance, the devil is in the details. What exactly, in terms of specific policies, would you have had the 80s/90s Dems do differently rather than what they did?

 

[superrific]

Yeah, that’s where we stand today. I think it could’ve been different if Dems in the 80s and 90s had pushed for workers rights instead of neoliberalism, but we’re past that point now.

I get what you’re saying about people being brainwashed, but I find it hard to blame the voters/citizens for all this crap we are in today. Someone had to do the brainwashing after all.

Labor policy gets formulated primarily at the NLRB. The president appoints members to the board. There were GOP presidents from 1980-1992. There was little that Dems could do to "push for worker rights."

The reason that Dems were getting CLOBBERED in presidential races from 1980-1988 was that Dems were perceived to be too far left, too much in the pocket of organized labor. And then Clinton won in 1992, by doing his "neoliberal" thing. And then we started getting some better union policies out of the NLRB.

To say, "neoliberalism killed unions" is exactly wrong. Unions were getting killed, and were going to continue to get killed. What you call "neoliberalism" saved the unions.

 

[UNCMSinLS]

Someone could make a killing explaining unions to Gen Z...those kids will eat it up.

My Bernie Bro son already does.

 

[Paine]

The Clinton and Carter administrations should not have massively deregulated the airlines, telecoms, and financial industries to start.

The response of the Democratic Party to Reaganism was to move further to the right on economic issues. A leaner meaner government, the era of big government is over, etc.

I think Dems should’ve embraced the power of government to provide material good to the American people instead of buying into right wing framing about the federal government being too powerful, spending too much, etc.

History has shown than these policies were utter failures, and they’ve only allowed the far-right to gain even more ground as I mentioned earlier.

When the ostensibly left party embraces gangster capitalism, it opens up a lot of space for the right to point out all the issues inherent within such a system.

Of course, the right has no answer to the plight of working people. But, for much of my life, neither have the Dems.

I mean this kindly but truthfully...that's a lot of words but not a lot of substance.

The only real policy you mentioned there is about deregulation and you failed to tie that into unions and the working class in any meaningful way.

When it comes to good governance, the devil is in the details. What exactly, in terms of specific policies, would you have had the 80s/90s Dems do differently rather than what they did?

Okay:
1. Don’t sign NAFTA into law.
2. Don’t deregulate the financial industry by allowing banks to gamble with depositor’s money.
3. Don’t sign the 1994 crime bill.
4. Enforce antitrust law.

 

[superrific]

I'd rather have all of those things too, but the people who would benefit most from those policies have been brainwashed into rabidly opposing them. Democrats aren't without blame in failing to fight hard enough for those things, or in not messaging about them effectively enough, but it's pretty clear which side of the political spectrum is responsible for ensuring that we don't have them.

Maybe people like big TVs. I mean, are we really going with "brainwashed" as the explanation for why Americans like to buy things? Is that something that is capable of brainwashing?

Brainwashing is possible for things that depend on knowledge. The knowledge can be skewed and twisted and sometimes just outright denied. It's less clear that "brainwashing" can affect people's fundamental values and desires. You need a better theory than "brainwashing."

I am a fan of Marcuse's book One-Dimensional Man, which is basically an exegesis on consumer capitalism. He approaches it the right way -- that consumerism is a cultural issue, in a reinforcement loop with capitalist enterprise and especially the increasing sophistication of advertising and marketing over the course of the 20th century. Brainwashing makes it sound like intentionality. It wasn't. It was systemic.

 

[UNCMSinLS]

A few weeks old, but good read,

"The most important reason is that the center-left, from Bill Clinton to Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder, ideologically shifted away from policies that were favoring labor."

Star Economist Acemoglu Discusses Trump: "It's Likely To Be Much Worse Now Than Eight Years Ago"

The U.S. economist Daron Acemoglu accuses center-left parties of having betrayed the interests of their core supporters. And warns that if Trump wins the election this fall, the situation could become worse than even during his first term in office.

www.spiegel.de

Try-strangulation, perhaps?

 

[Paine]

Labor policy gets formulated primarily at the NLRB. The president appoints members to the board. There were GOP presidents from 1980-1992. There was little that Dems could do to "push for worker rights."

The reason that Dems were getting CLOBBERED in presidential races from 1980-1988 was that Dems were perceived to be too far left, too much in the pocket of organized labor. And then Clinton won in 1992, by doing his "neoliberal" thing. And then we started getting some better union policies out of the NLRB.

To say, "neoliberalism killed unions" is exactly wrong. Unions were getting killed, and were going to continue to get killed. What you call "neoliberalism" saved the unions.

What would you call the ideology of the men who held the presidency from 1977-1993? Bill Clinton was not the first neoliberal.

 

[superrific]

Okay:
1. Don’t sign NAFTA into law.
2. Don’t regulate the financial industry by allowing banks to gamble with depositor’s money.
3. Don’t sign the 1994 crime bill.
4. Enforce antitrust law.

Please expand on point 2. "Banks gambling with depositor's money" is literally the economic function of banks. That's one reason we have federal deposit insurance.

As for NAFTA, tariffs do not create prosperity. Thought experiment: if tariffs against Mexico are such a good idea, shouldn't Michigan put up tariffs against Alabama? Maybe the Triangle should put up tariffs against East NC. Why not? Don't tell me that it's impossible because of the law. We could change the law. Tell me why, if NAFTA was so bad, then why do we have free trade between states?

And enforcing antitrust law? I'm going to hazard a guess that you don't know much about antitrust or antitrust enforcement. It is not so easy as "enforcing' it. It can only be enforced in court, and when the courts are hostile to antitrust law, there's nothing that the president can do about it except appoint judges and wait. After all, antitrust law can also be enforced by private parties. Why were they doing such a bad job? Or maybe they weren't. Maybe the courts established policies, theories and evidentiary burdens that made it very difficult for antitrust plaintiffs of all types.

 

[Paine]

Please expand on point 2. "Banks gambling with depositor's money" is literally the economic function of banks. That's one reason we have federal deposit insurance.

As for NAFTA, tariffs do not create prosperity. Thought experiment: if tariffs against Mexico are such a good idea, shouldn't Michigan put up tariffs against Alabama? Maybe the Triangle should put up tariffs against East NC. Why not? Don't tell me that it's impossible because of the law. We could change the law. Tell me why, if NAFTA was so bad, then why do we have free trade between states?

And enforcing antitrust law? I'm going to hazard a guess that you don't know much about antitrust or antitrust enforcement. It is not so easy as "enforcing' it. It can only be enforced in court, and when the courts are hostile to antitrust law, there's nothing that the president can do about it except appoint judges and wait. After all, antitrust law can also be enforced by private parties. Why were they doing such a bad job? Or maybe they weren't. Maybe the courts established policies, theories and evidentiary burdens that made it very difficult for antitrust plaintiffs of all types.

Please expand on point 2. "Banks gambling with depositor's money" is literally the economic function of banks. That's one reason we have federal deposit insurance.

As for NAFTA, tariffs do not create prosperity. Thought experiment: if tariffs against Mexico are such a good idea, shouldn't Michigan put up tariffs against Alabama? Maybe the Triangle should put up tariffs against East NC. Why not? Don't tell me that it's impossible because of the law. We could change the law. Tell me why, if NAFTA was so bad, then why do we have free trade between states?

And enforcing antitrust law? I'm going to hazard a guess that you don't know much about antitrust or antitrust enforcement. It is not so easy as "enforcing' it. It can only be enforced in court, and when the courts are hostile to antitrust law, there's nothing that the president can do about it except appoint judges and wait. After all, antitrust law can also be enforced by private parties. Why were they doing such a bad job? Or maybe they weren't. Maybe the courts established policies, theories and evidentiary burdens that made it very difficult for antitrust plaintiffs of all types.

1. I’m referring to the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
2. Being anti-NAFTA doesn’t mean being pro-tariff. Tariffs weren’t the only thing implicated in NAFTA’s signing into law.
3. Who appoints these federal judges and Supreme Court justices that are so hostile to anti-trust law?
4. You would do well being a lot less condescending. I got tired of it on the other board, and I’m already tired of it here.

 

[superrific]

When people see government programs working for them, it changes their opinion about the government and what is possible.

Do you have any evidence for this? My observations are that people who benefit from government programs like those programs. It doesn't mean they like the government. West Virginia is full of people on disability who hate government regulations because reasons. Obamacare is popular, but have you noticed Kentucky -- which had one of the most successful Obamacare rollouts -- becoming less hostile to government? I don't. I think people like their Obamacare, and that's all.

 

[Paine]

Do you have any evidence for this? My observations are that people who benefit from government programs like those programs. It doesn't mean they like the government. West Virginia is full of people on disability who hate government regulations because reasons. Obamacare is popular, but have you noticed Kentucky -- which had one of the most successful Obamacare rollouts -- becoming less hostile to government? I don't. I think people like their Obamacare, and that's all.

Social Security is the model. A no frills program that everyone loves and is universal.

Obamacare is the opposite. A means tested, private partnership that most people don’t even understand is a government benefit.

It’s a failure of messaging and imagination. FDR showed millions of Americans that the federal government could provide material advances in living standards.

Going back to the heart of this argument, neoliberalism has created many more Obamacares than social securities.

Think about how something like a universal child care program provided by the government free of cost could make people change their minds about what government does and what is possible.

This is because of the neoliberal frame of mind that has been beat into people’s heads by the right and the Democratic Party: government bad, private business good.

 

[superrific]

1. I’m referring to the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
2. Being anti-NAFTA doesn’t mean being pro-tariff. Tariffs weren’t the only thing implicated in NAFTA’s signing into law.
3. Who appoints these federal judges and Supreme Court justices that are so hostile to anti-trust law?
4. You would do well being a lot less condescending. I got tired of it on the other board, and I’m already tired of it here.

1. I figured that you were referring to the repeal of Glass-Steagall. There is an enduring myth on the left that Glass-Steagall was this amazing policy that was protecting everyone and Clinton just caved to big money interests in getting rid of it. In fact, Glass-Steagall was already dead when it was formally terminated. The firms that really caused the financial crisis were born in a Glass-Steagall world.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall actually helped the US weather the financial crisis. The institutions that survived the financial crisis were the ones that Glass-Steagall made possible: JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America. The institutions that went belly up, like Lehman, Bear Stearns, Wachovia -- these were institutions that by and large played by the pre-1998 rules.

Glass-Steagall was bad regulation. That's not surprising, because financial regulation wasn't really a thing in those days. Laws like Glass-Steagall helped to create the field of financial regulation in economics and public policy -- and then when the professionals trained in those fields took a look at some of the Depression era laws, they came to realize that they weren't well-done. It's the same way that the US Constitution was a miracle in 1789 but doesn't work well at all in our time.

2. I am aware of what was in NAFTA. I think you're referring to the issue of non-tariff barriers. Well, non-tariff barriers are equivalent to tariffs. That's axiomatic trade law/trade economics. If you'd like me to use a more general term like "trade restrictions," fine. Answer the question. Should Michigan enact trade restrictions relative to Alabama. Why or why not?

3. The judges in question were appointed by Republican presidents because, as you might know, the presidency was controlled by Republicans from 1968-1992, with only a four year interregnum. That's 30 years of GOP judges against Carter's four, and Carter didn't even get a judge on the Supreme Court.

So it's all well and good to say, "Dems should do more for antitrust" but the reality is that Dems can't do anything if they can't win an election. I find it utterly mind-boggling for people to look at the history and say, "Bill Clinton was bad for our country." The election of Bill Clinton saved the country. If Clinton didn't win in 92, the economy would have been good again in 96, paving the way for another GOP presidency at that point. Maybe a Dem could have won in 96, but it would have been a centrist Dem whose policies looked a lot like Clinton's.

Stephen Breyer was the best judge in American history on antitrust law, in my view. Clinton appointed him in his first term. If Clinton had lost that election, we would have had a 7-2 GOP supermajority for years and years.

 

[SnoopRob]

Okay:
1. Don’t sign NAFTA into law.
2. Don’t deregulate the financial industry by allowing banks to gamble with depositor’s money.
3. Don’t sign the 1994 crime bill.
4. Enforce antitrust law.

Thanks for that answer. I appreciate it.

 

[Paine]

1. I figured that you were referring to the repeal of Glass-Steagall. There is an enduring myth on the left that Glass-Steagall was this amazing policy that was protecting everyone and Clinton just caved to big money interests in getting rid of it. In fact, Glass-Steagall was already dead when it was formally terminated. The firms that really caused the financial crisis were born in a Glass-Steagall world.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall actually helped the US weather the financial crisis. The institutions that survived the financial crisis were the ones that Glass-Steagall made possible: JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America. The institutions that went belly up, like Lehman, Bear Stearns, Wachovia -- these were institutions that by and large played by the pre-1998 rules.

Glass-Steagall was bad regulation. That's not surprising, because financial regulation wasn't really a thing in those days. Laws like Glass-Steagall helped to create the field of financial regulation in economics and public policy -- and then when the professionals trained in those fields took a look at some of the Depression era laws, they came to realize that they weren't well-done. It's the same way that the US Constitution was a miracle in 1789 but doesn't work well at all in our time.

2. I am aware of what was in NAFTA. I think you're referring to the issue of non-tariff barriers. Well, non-tariff barriers are equivalent to tariffs. That's axiomatic trade law/trade economics. If you'd like me to use a more general term like "trade restrictions," fine. Answer the question. Should Michigan enact trade restrictions relative to Alabama. Why or why not?

3. The judges in question were appointed by Republican presidents because, as you might know, the presidency was controlled by Republicans from 1968-1992, with only a four year interregnum. That's 30 years of GOP judges against Carter's four, and Carter didn't even get a judge on the Supreme Court.

So it's all well and good to say, "Dems should do more for antitrust" but the reality is that Dems can't do anything if they can't win an election. I find it utterly mind-boggling for people to look at the history and say, "Bill Clinton was bad for our country." The election of Bill Clinton saved the country. If Clinton didn't win in 92, the economy would have been good again in 96, paving the way for another GOP presidency at that point. Maybe a Dem could have won in 96, but it would have been a centrist Dem whose policies looked a lot like Clinton's.

Stephen Breyer was the best judge in American history on antitrust law, in my view. Clinton appointed him in his first term. If Clinton had lost that election, we would have had a 7-2 GOP supermajority for years and years.

I just think that the main contention between us that I think that Clinton and the Republicans were bad presidents. Reagan and Bush being worse than Clinton doesn’t make Clinton good. The neoliberal project has been nonpartisan because it is driven by a capitalist class that controls the Republican Party and, to a lesser extent to be sure, the Democratic Party.

I can’t prove a counter-factual. None of us know what would’ve happened if it had been a further left Democrat than Clinton running against Bush in 92. Maybe Jerry Brown would’ve won and ushered in an era of Democratic dominance. No one knows.

What we do know is that the current state of the world is one wrought by neoliberalism and its collapse. It has been the dominant ideology of the globe for the past 30 years, and working people have gained nothing since then.

Thank god we’ve got flat screen TVs to distract us from it all though.

 

[superrific]

Social Security is the model. A no frills program that everyone loves and is universal.

Obamacare is the opposite. A means tested, private partnership that most people don’t even understand is a government benefit.

It’s a failure of messaging and imagination. FDR showed millions of Americans that the federal government could provide material advances in living standards.

Going back to the heart of this argument, neoliberalism has created many more Obamacares than social securities.

Think about how something like a universal child care program provided by the government free of cost could make people change their minds about what government does and what is possible.

This is because of the neoliberal frame of mind that has been beat into people’s heads by the right and the Democratic Party: government bad, private business good.

I'm not going to get into an argument about Obamacare versus Social Security. I will just say that neoliberalism didn't create the Obamacare features that you are criticizing. Joe Lieberman did. Obama had 57 Senators or so ready to go with the Obamacare + public option. But he needed 60 because of the filibuster, and Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman wouldn't play ball. They were holdouts, in large measure protecting their states' bigger employers.

The filibuster did the work that you ascribe to "neoliberalism." I favor eliminating the filibuster. But the Senate has, for reasons that I don't totally understand, been reluctant (to put it mildly) to do so.

Private business tends to be more efficient than government at providing goods and services. That's why everywhere in the globe, prosperity is the result of private business. China became prosperous after Deng allowed for markets and private industry. India became more prosperous after lifting the heavy regulations and government involvement that had stultified growth for a generation. So on and so forth. The so-called Washington Consensus gets slammed by lefties for its high-profile failures (e.g. Argentina) but the reason the Consensus existed in the first place was that the policies espoused had worked in so many places (and continues to work).

Government should get involved in cases of market failures or market imperfections. That doesn't mean it has to be the producer. The history of state control over enterprise is not an encouraging one. It is better for the government to write rules, and the more perilous the market (e.g. health care), the more stringent rules are needed.

 

[Paine]

I'm not going to get into an argument about Obamacare versus Social Security. I will just say that neoliberalism didn't create the Obamacare features that you are criticizing. Joe Lieberman did. Obama had 57 Senators or so ready to go with the Obamacare + public option. But he needed 60 because of the filibuster, and Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman wouldn't play ball. They were holdouts, in large measure protecting their states' bigger employers.

The filibuster did the work that you ascribe to "neoliberalism." I favor eliminating the filibuster. But the Senate has, for reasons that I don't totally understand, been reluctant (to put it mildly) to do so.

Private business tends to be more efficient than government at providing goods and services. That's why everywhere in the globe, prosperity is the result of private business. China became prosperous after Deng allowed for markets and private industry. India became more prosperous after lifting the heavy regulations and government involvement that had stultified growth for a generation. So on and so forth. The so-called Washington Consensus gets slammed by lefties for its high-profile failures (e.g. Argentina) but the reason the Consensus existed in the first place was that the policies espoused had worked in so many places (and continues to work).

Government should get involved in cases of market failures or market imperfections. That doesn't mean it has to be the producer. The history of state control over enterprise is not an encouraging one. It is better for the government to write rules, and the more perilous the market (e.g. health care), the more stringent rules are needed.

I think, for many of the conditions you describe, neoliberalism exacerbated the anti-democratic features inherent within our Constitutional system.

Lieberman was a creature of neoliberalism and his critiques of Obamacare were firmly centered in a neoliberal framework. The formulation and perfection of these arguments is what allows someone like Lieberman to wield such an argument and still hold a seat in Congress.

Of course, like I said, the anti-democratic nature of the Senate also fosters these conditions. Neoliberalism is, at its heart, an ideology created by and for the ruling class.

Getting into an argument about markets is too much for this thread, IMO. We aren’t going to agree about it at the end of the day because I’m a socialist and you aren’t. I think regulated markets are efficient when regulated and functioning correctly as you say.

 

[superrific]

I just think that the main contention between us that I think that Clinton and the Republicans were bad presidents. Reagan and Bush being worse than Clinton doesn’t make Clinton good. The neoliberal project has been nonpartisan because it is driven by a capitalist class that controls the Republican Party and, to a lesser extent to be sure, the Democratic Party.

I can’t prove a counter-factual. None of us know what would’ve happened if it had been a further left Democrat than Clinton running against Bush in 92. Maybe Jerry Brown would’ve won and ushered in an era of Democratic dominance. No one knows.

What we do know is that the current state of the world is one wrought by neoliberalism and its collapse. It has been the dominant ideology of the globe for the past 30 years, and working people have gained nothing since then.

Thank god we’ve got flat screen TVs to distract us from it all though.

What you call neoliberalism has created prosperity worldwide. The Washington Consensus was never perfect (duh) and policy makers have refined the approaches. But the ideas espoused in the Washington Consensus have not been abandoned. In fact, they are now often taken for granted, by liberals and conservatives alike, because they work -- certainly better than any alternatives.

I think there are two points of disagreement here:

1. I've been in halls of policy. I took many classes with public policy people. I have close friends who are professional economists. A good friend of mine in law school was a trade guru. These people are not sellouts to a "capitalist class." They just aren't. Neither am I. So the caricature presented by leftists of the policy community is not only insulting; it's just wrong. And part of the reason it's wrong is the assumption that policies are bad because capitalists support them. That's just not true.

The idea that capitalists want poor countries to stay poor is inaccurate. Big business benefits from prosperity. It makes the purchasing power of its customer base much larger. You think that Pizza Hut wants Pakistan to be poor? It doesn't. It wants Pakistan to be rich, so people will buy more of its pizzas (which, in South Asia, do not necessarily resemble American pizza).

That isn't to say that capital's incentives are perfectly aligned with the general population. Of course they aren't. Maybe not even well-aligned, depending on what you mean by well. But there is alignment there. Anyway, I'm not going to change my view of the effects of trade restrictions just because Jamie Dimon also has that view.

2. Leftists tend to ignore, in all the breathless talk about sweatshops and labor rights, that many of these countries had economies that were, in some sense, pre-industrial. The alternative to working in a Thai sweatshop is not working in a worker's paradise. It's working in a rice paddy, or being a subsistence farmer, and that's even more of a sweatshop. It also creates huge economic insecurity. And rice paddies do not offer a means of advancement.

These effects are sometimes lost in statistics about wages because the agricultural peasants and subsistence farmers often didn't ever show up in economic statistics. They weren't workers. They weren't employed by anyone. And so when you look at wage statistics from Indonesia, and see that real wages only rose by 5% per year from the 1970s to the late 1990s (per stats from the ILO), you might be underwhelmed by that statistic. But then realize how many more people were employed and receiving that growing wage. Millions of people fled rural areas to work in factories in big cities. You know, like what happened in the US

3. Nobody says that the world or the global economy or any national economies are perfect. They aren't. Not even close. I just think it is fundamentally wrong to blame sound economic policies by lumping them in with BS under the rubric of "neoliberalism" (which was never a coherent term to begin with).

 

[Paine]

What you call neoliberalism has created prosperity worldwide. The Washington Consensus was never perfect (duh) and policy makers have refined the approaches. But the ideas espoused in the Washington Consensus have not been abandoned. In fact, they are now often taken for granted, by liberals and conservatives alike, because they work -- certainly better than any alternatives.

I think there are two points of disagreement here:

1. I've been in halls of policy. I took many classes with public policy people. I have close friends who are professional economists. A good friend of mine in law school was a trade guru. These people are not sellouts to a "capitalist class." They just aren't. Neither am I. So the caricature presented by leftists of the policy community is not only insulting; it's just wrong. And part of the reason it's wrong is the assumption that policies are bad because capitalists support them. That's just not true.

The idea that capitalists want poor countries to stay poor is inaccurate. Big business benefits from prosperity. It makes the purchasing power of its customer base much larger. You think that Pizza Hut wants Pakistan to be poor? It doesn't. It wants Pakistan to be rich, so people will buy more of its pizzas (which, in South Asia, do not necessarily resemble American pizza).

That isn't to say that capital's incentives are perfectly aligned with the general population. Of course they aren't. Maybe not even well-aligned, depending on what you mean by well. But there is alignment there. Anyway, I'm not going to change my view of the effects of trade restrictions just because Jamie Dimon also has that view.

2. Leftists tend to ignore, in all the breathless talk about sweatshops and labor rights, that many of these countries had economies that were, in some sense, pre-industrial. The alternative to working in a Thai sweatshop is not working in a worker's paradise. It's working in a rice paddy, or being a subsistence farmer, and that's even more of a sweatshop. It also creates huge economic insecurity. And rice paddies do not offer a means of advancement.

These effects are sometimes lost in statistics about wages because the agricultural peasants and subsistence farmers often didn't ever show up in economic statistics. They weren't workers. They weren't employed by anyone. And so when you look at wage statistics from Indonesia, and see that real wages only rose by 5% per year from the 1970s to the late 1990s (per stats from the ILO), you might be underwhelmed by that statistic. But then realize how many more people were employed and receiving that growing wage. Millions of people fled rural areas to work in factories in big cities. You know, like what happened in the US

3. Nobody says that the world or the global economy or any national economies are perfect. They aren't. Not even close. I just think it is fundamentally wrong to blame sound economic policies by lumping them in with BS under the rubric of "neoliberalism" (which was never a coherent term to begin with).

Like I said, we just aren’t going to agree about this.

 

[superrific]

I think, for many of the conditions you describe, neoliberalism exacerbated the anti-democratic features inherent within our Constitutional system.

Lieberman was a creature of neoliberalism and his critiques of Obamacare were firmly centered in a neoliberal framework. The formulation and perfection of these arguments is what allows someone like Lieberman to wield such an argument and still hold a seat in Congress.

Of course, like I said, the anti-democratic nature of the Senate also fosters these conditions. Neoliberalism is, at its heart, an ideology created by and for the ruling class.

Getting into an argument about markets is too much for this thread, IMO. We aren’t going to agree about it at the end of the day because I’m a socialist and you aren’t. I think regulated markets are efficient when regulated and functioning correctly as you say.

Lieberman was not a creature of neoliberalism. Just stop. He was a creature of the insurance industry being located in Connecticut.

Here is where we can find common ground, I suspect: Max Baucus. He wasn't a creature of "neoliberalism,: but he was who he was because of the bizarre electoral system we call "The Senate." It's no secret that businesses find it easier to purchase influence at the state level than at the federal level (one reason big business is happy to endorse "state's rights" most of the time), and it's even easier to buy a candidate from a small population state where out of state funds can swamp donations from in-state. So Baucus had no choice but to favor business interests. He would have lost his seat otherwise, because all that money would have gone to his rivals if he didn't hold up his end of the bargain to some extent.

There's a reason why the most liberal Senators tend to come from big states (Vermont excluded for a number of reasons). It just costs so much more to buy Diane Feinstein than Max Baucus, and you're competing with so many other interests. So the Senate is wonderful for Big Business, because it gives the inexpensive-to-buy Senators as much power as the hard-to-buy.