The New Right Prosperity Story II ☀
…We have, time and again, decided to pour debt into aggregate demand instead of fundamental economic systems like education or infrastructure. I don’t understand why the blame for this process is being laid upon a nebulous “corporate America.” Moreover, I don’t understand how your protectionist theories and vague New Deal fetishization produce a workable 2010 policy in a world where America will have to compete on cost to “home-spin” goods.
Protectionist theories? New Deal fetishization? Phew!
Regarding “protectionist theories”, let it be noted that in those periods where U.S. policy was higher tariffs, that was also the nation’s golden age of greatest economic advancement. And also, in stark contrast to IMF interests and lords of neoliberal orthodoxies (which are part and parcel of the economic fail of the past 30 years of neoliberal economic policy), the model embraced by Japan, Korea and China. To nourish and protect essential native industry until they are giant enough to commandeer in the global pool.
My telos is not centered on instructive 2010 policy, but (a) to highlight how the neoliberal economic orthodoxies are blatantly contradicted by empirical reality and (b) how the nature of work has dramatically morphed — where increased productivity is fostered by a smaller set of labor players.
