Eduardo Porter reluctantly identifies root causes of the Exiter movement, laying the blame at the feet of mainstream establishment neoliberalism, as pursued by both Liberals and Conservatives in the US and Europe. But even when they have so disastrously failed, and with the establishment still arguing for more of the same – austerity, small government, open markets, free movement of people – Porter can’t bring himself to say ‘tear the motherfucker down’.
The Keynesian era ended when Thatcher and Reagan rode onto the scene with a version of capitalism based on tax cuts, privatization and deregulation that helped revive their engines of growth but led the workers of the world to the deeply frustrating, increasingly unequal economy of today.
There are potentially constructive approaches to set the world economy on a more promising path. For starters, what about taking advantage of rock-bottom interest rates to tap the world’s excess funds to build and repair a fraying public infrastructure? That would employ legions of blue-collar workers and help increase economic growth, which has been only inching ahead across much of the industrialized world.
After the Brexit vote, Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary under President Clinton and one of President Obama’s top economic advisers at the nadir of the Great Recession, laid out an argument for what he called “responsible nationalism,” which focused squarely on the interests of domestic workers.
Instead of negotiating more agreements to ease business across borders, governments would focus on deals to improve labor and environmental standards internationally. They might cut deals to prevent cross-border tax evasion.
There is, however, little evidence that the world’s leaders will go down that path. Despite the case for economic stimulus, austerity still rules across much of the West. In Europe, most governments have imposed stringent budget cuts — ensuring that all but the strongest economies would stall. In the United States, political polarization has brought fiscal policy — spending and taxes — to a standstill.
The cost of inaction could be enormous. Mr. Johnson’s campaign to reject British membership of the European Union is already producing political and economic shock waves around the world. Mr. Trump — whose solutions include punishing China with high tariffs and building a wall with Mexico — is trying to ride workers’ angst into the most powerful job in the world.
There are less catastrophic ways to put an end to an era.
And he also forgets to mention ardent liberals, like Bernie Sanders, who are calling for a revolution on very similar grounds.
This isn’t conservative versus liberal: it’s the establishment elite – politicians, the managerial and creative class, and the 1% – who are tsk-tsking Brexit and the larger Exit movement, and who a lining up against everyone else.
from Stowe Boyd http://www.stoweboyd.com/post/146657014217
