So, I touched on this in the article about how this aint our year and how our economic ideas arent going to be popular in the 2024 election cycle, but I do want to posit a theory here.
So, we all know the economic cycle exists. And here's an article with a graph talking about the cycle over the past several decades. The graph is the important thing. It goes up, and down, and up, and down, and up, and down with regularity. And since, unemployment went WAY up in 2020, and then WAY down in 2021. if anything, it went down way too much all at once in 2021, and that may be part of the issue with why the political environment is as it is.
Generally speaking, we got this thing called the phillips curve. I know its kind of ignored since the 1980s due to the neoliberal ideological victory over keynesianism, but I still see value in it. Basically, unemployment exists to put the brakes on inflation. This is why real full employment is impossible. What the issue is now is we got high inflation and low unemployment, and yeah, that generally tends to be left wing politics' kryptonite. Inflation goes up, people arent concerned about unemployment, they're concerned about inflation. In some ways, it's often seen that the causes of high inflation are things like people not wanting to work (due to a relative shortage of workers to the number of jobs available), government spending, etc. And that's why when you propose something like a 32 hour work week, or a UBI, people will fear monger about how it will make the cost of everything go up. Because in a sense, if such policies do put more pressure on businesses to raise prices, they will, which will cause inflation. As I said, this isn't the year for big ticket items. Because everyone is just gonna be like hurr durr things are expensive as it is, if you want something you gotta get a JOB! (and I capitalize job because jobists think doing so kind of emphasizes their point, like it's some massive revelation that has never come to the minds of the other person). And yeah. Higher minimum wage? Inflation concerns. More government spending? Inflation concerns. reduce the amount of time we spend working? Inflation concerns. It doesn't matter what we say on the left, as long as inflation is this boogeyman around the corner that everyone is freaked out about, it will put the brakes on any left wing ideas. The combination of low unemployment and high costs will say that the real problem is all of this liberalism and government stuff and what we need is less intervention and more free market economics and that if everyone worked and the government left everything alone, things would be fine. This is how such ideas took root in the 1980s, Carter got destroyed, Reaganism solved the problems by repressing the working class, and everyone was happy. The center of gravity shifts to the right during times like this, and pushing the left too hard is political suicide anyway.
Thankfully, if you look at those graphs, you'll find that periods of full employment are often fleeting and transitory. We kinda are in truly abnormal times having as "strong" of an economy we've had for three years now. I wonder how much longer it can go on. Because historically, this state doesn't last long before a recession comes along and messes everything up again. And then everyone will be out of work, and hey, guess what, we'll need the government spending again to get things running, and as the balance shifts more in favor of employers in employment negotiations, people will realize just how crap jobs are.
It's no wonder that I came to my own ideology during the greatest recession in 80 years. And it's no wonder that the great depression spawned the new deal. When the economy gets bad, really bad, the opposite happens, we develop a more left wing spirit where we want the government to take decisive action to keep peoples' lives stable. And thus, left wing ideas become more popular during bad economic times.
My own politics are defined by that recession, but right now, that zeitgeist is gone. Between the "trump recovery" (which was the obama recovery), COVID, and then the aftermath, the country is lurching right. And the left has to play its cards right to remain relevant. As such, Im willing to temporarily cede the issues to more centrist (but still mildly) progressive candidates like Biden and defend these policies. because man, if we left the right ruin this man's legacy, we are screwed. If the biden years become remembered like the carter years, that's gonna slam the door in our faces and give the right a gift that keeps on giving.
A decade ago, I would have said the future was the left, and someone like bernie sanders coming along and fixing capitalism. But right now, if we let the right succeed, they could be the future, again, and that scares us. We had two once in a generation economic crises. One developed a wave of left wing thought, and the other is developing a wave of right wing thought. And I don't know what the future is. Quite frankly, I think the left made severe tactical errors with going full on centrist as opposed to left, but we can't really litigate the issue right now because the environment is shifting away from us. And it scares me.
So....yeah, stepping off the brakes and defending Biden is literally the best we can do right now. We can litigate this issue in the future. Left wing ideas arent actually responsible for the current issues. But people are getting angsty about them and because your median voter isnt that smart, they're shifting right themselves. We kinda gotta wait out this good economic time, which will probably be transitory of history is any guide (it's the "best in 50 years" for a reason), and then we can go back to advocacy.
Again, look at the history, barring covid, the current economic environment is actually really abnormal. Capitalism doesnt normally produce such prolonged periods of unemployment. And if history is any guide, the bubble will bust eventually. I would be surprised if the economy is still this strong in 2028. It could be, but yeah, again, kinda weird. Then again, we could see the bottom fall out in 2029, just like it did in 1929 after the roaring 20s, and yeah. It happens.
So, left wing ideas are popular during recessions, right wing ideas are popular during periods of high inflation and economic booms, and we're just watching the pendulum swing right. It'll swing back. Again. I keep saying it, but treat 2024 as a tactical retreat. We'll be back eventually.
No comments:
Post a Comment