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Are You Serious?
Whatever sort of derision you want to aim at the neoliberal consensus (in all its various manifestations), we shouldn't pretend the entire enterprise was an abject failure.
Do you or do you not want cheap flatscreens? I'm kidding.
Globalization hoisted untold millions out of abject poverty around the world, and on a strict utilitarian calculus, you could make the case that gain trumps the "losses" that accrued to blue collar workers in America and the lower middle-class across the developed wo
At least in the USA, ” the land of self-reliance”, Trump & Co also offer a great set of excuses for your personal failings. As in “it’s not your fault that you cannot get a well-paying job where you can call in sick a few times a month (due to brown bottle flu) because you goofed off in high school and didn’t bother to learn a marketable skill, like being able to read the instructions for a machine. Nope. It’s because of immigrants, racial preferences and, of course, the Chinese!” And those same Chinese are why you became addicted to opiods.
“It’s not your fault” is a winning message.
LOL well said
An additional crucial point , as well noted by Abe Spekle below, is that your hopeless precarity is not due to the economic structure of our country either. It’s all due to immgrants, DEI and the Chinese!
Hopeless precarity?
This is hopeless precarity.
That’s true. Those whining white men in the rural south have nothing to complain about.
In April, H wrote that: “In many (not all, but many) cases, autocrats and autocratic regimes stake their legitimacy in part on the presentation of a perpetual foil. The less successful a given regime is at providing for the needs of its people (where that typically means failing to facilitate good economic outcomes) the more important such narratives become. For Vladimir Putin, the foil is NATO and, less precise, the apostate “West.” For Recep Erdogan, the foil is Fethullah Gulen. For North Korea, the foil is America. For Iran, the foil is Israel. And also America.”
Apparently, for America, the foil is China. (Sorry if I accidentally traffic in pro-China propaganda. Didn’t mean to. Just wanted to echo Derek’s point. Still 100% USA all the way).
Does having a foil also mean we need to go to war against the foil? or can it be theoretical for a long time?
No. If we are serious, we should know what we only have ourselves to blame for our own problems. In the same way China has only itself to blame for its problems. Unless we want to remain in a state of denial that we don’t see the problems coming from within the house. It’s always easier to blame the scapegoats than to admit our own shortcomings. I dare say this thinking is quite popular stateside, where almost everyone tells the next person that the US is the greatest country in the world. I mean, when you’re the greatest, it’s always someone else’s fault. The problem is, it’s not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJh9t9h6Wn0
One thing I frequently remind myself of when I see political leaders, CEOs, coaches/referees, etc. screw up is what would it be like if all of my work got scrutinized to that degree? I’ve made dumb mistakes throughout my career and in my personal life, but I have the luxury of those mistakes impacting few people and not being constantly dissected by the public. I would hazard a guess that’s the same for 99.9999% of people.
Of course if that coach would just pass the ball more, we’d win every game! Let’s hire Bob from Peoria to coach the team since he played junior varsity football and he has enough common sense to pass the ball. Never mind all those fancy analysts and experts who spend their lives dedicated to the sport.
A democracy requires an engaged and educated citizenry. The globalization project was only partially implemented. The gains from trade (the implemented part) were almost entirely diverted to the capital owning class. An informed, educated and engaged citizenry could have used their political power as voters to ensure the gains from trade were largely used for the betterment of society (the part not implemented) rather than diverted to enrich the few.
I should add that as a young, naive economist back in the day, I believed the political will would be there to better the lives of those that were hurt by globalization. I sure got that wrong.
You nailed it–very well done!
H-Man, as you well know the rise and fall of societies is eternal. The hard part is knowing where we are in the rise and fall.
I don’t know for sure, but I feel like this piece is a response to the question I posed in the comments to C’est La vie. If it is, I wanted to say it didn’t go un-noticed and if it’s just a happy coincidence, I’m good with that, too.
I feel like we are all in a mumeration. Flowing, milling turning, order out of chaos.
ON a more descriptive note. I appreciate the different perspectives. H, is more eloquent and knowledgeable than me. Therefore I learn at every interaction. It is correct to not place a halo on the head of the gadfly.
Well damn, I was hoping for a halo!