For 40 years, elites in rich and poor countries alike promised that neoliberal policies would lead to faster economic growth, and that the benefits would trickle down so that everyone, including the poorest, would be better off. Now that the evidence is in, is it any wonder that trust in elites and confidence in democracy have plummeted?
NEW YORK – At the end of the Cold War, political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a celebrated essay called “The End of History?” Communism’s collapse, he argued, would clear the last obstacle separating the entire world from its destiny of liberal democracy and market economies. Many people agreed.
Today, as we face a retreat from the rules-based, liberal global order, with autocratic rulers and demagogues leading countries that contain well over half the world’s population, Fukuyama’s idea seems quaint and naive. But it reinforced the neoliberal economic doctrine that has prevailed for the last 40 years.
The credibility of neoliberalism’s faith in unfettered markets as the surest road to shared prosperity is on life-support these days. And well it should be. The simultaneous waning of confidence in neoliberalism and in democracy is no coincidence or mere correlation. Neoliberalism has undermined democracy for 40 years.
The form of globalization prescribed by neoliberalism left individuals and entire societies unable to control an important part of their own destiny, as Dani Rodrik of Harvard University has explained so clearly, and as I argue in my recent books Globalization and Its Discontents Revisitedand People, Power, and Profits. The effects of capital-market liberalization were particularly odious: If a leading presidential candidate in an emerging market lost favor with Wall Street, the banks would pull their money out of the country. Voters then faced a stark choice: Give in to Wall Street or face a severe financial crisis. It was as if Wall Street had more political power than the country’s citizens.
Even in rich countries, ordinary citizens were told, “You can’t pursue the policies you want” – whether adequate social protection, decent wages, progressive taxation, or a well-regulated financial system – “because the country will lose competitiveness, jobs will disappear, and you will suffer.”
In rich and poor countries alike, elites promised that neoliberal policies would lead to faster economic growth, and that the benefits would trickle down so that everyone, including the poorest, would be better off. To get there, though, workers would have to accept lower wages, and all citizens would have to accept cutbacks in important government programs.
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The elites claimed that their promises were based on scientific economic models and “evidence-based research.” Well, after 40 years, the numbers are in: growth has slowed, and the fruits of that growth went overwhelmingly to a very few at the top. As wages stagnated and the stock market soared, income and wealth flowed up, rather than trickling down.
How can wage restraint – to attain or maintain competitiveness – and reduced government programs possibly add up to higher standards of living? Ordinary citizens felt like they had been sold a bill of goods. They were right to feel conned.
We are now experiencing the political consequences of this grand deception: distrust of the elites, of the economic “science” on which neoliberalism was based, and of the money-corrupted political system that made it all possible.
The reality is that, despite its name, the era of neoliberalism was far from liberal. It imposed an intellectual orthodoxy whose guardians were utterly intolerant of dissent. Economists with heterodox views were treated as heretics to be shunned, or at best shunted off to a few isolated institutions. Neoliberalism bore little resemblance to the “open society” that Karl Popper had advocated. As George Soros has emphasized, Popper recognized that our society is a complex, ever-evolving system in which the more we learn, the more our knowledge changes the behavior of the system.
Nowhere was this intolerance greater than in macroeconomics, where the prevailing models ruled out the possibility of a crisis like the one we experienced in 2008. When the impossible happened, it was treated as if it were a 500-year flood – a freak occurrence that no model could have predicted. Even today, advocates of these theories refuse to accept that their belief in self-regulating markets and their dismissal of externalities as either nonexistent or unimportant led to the deregulation that was pivotal in fueling the crisis. The theory continues to survive, with Ptolemaic attempts to make it fit the facts, which attests to the reality that bad ideas, once established, often have a slow death.
If the 2008 financial crisis failed to make us realize that unfettered markets don’t work, the climate crisis certainly should: neoliberalism will literally bring an end to our civilization. But it is also clear that demagogues who would have us turn our back on science and tolerance will only make matters worse.
The only way forward, the only way to save our planet and our civilization, is a rebirth of history. We must revitalize the Enlightenment and recommit to honoring its values of freedom, respect for knowledge, and democracy.
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Impeachment isn’t Democrats vs. Republicans. It’s right vs. wrong.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol as debate on the articles of impeachment against President Trump continues on Wednesday. (Drew Angerer/AFP/Getty Images)
The typical journalist’s way to report on the impeachment vote in faux-evenhanded fashion is to depict it as another sign of unending partisan conflict. As a Wall Street Journal headline put it: “In Impeachment, Tribalization of Politics Becomes Almost Complete.” This is undoubtedly true given the predictable party-line vote. But one should not imply that because the two parties disagree, they have equally legitimate arguments. That is not the case. Impeachment is not Democrats vs. Republicans. It’s right vs. wrong.
Of course there is partisanship on both sides — and Democrats should rue their hyperbolic criticisms of past Republican standard-bearers, which leave them open to the charge that they are crying wolf today. But just because George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John McCain and other Republicans were not as bad as Democrats said doesn’t mean they are wrong about Trump. I disagreed with Democrats then, but I agree with them now. Democrats are right to call Trump a uniquely awful president — and they are right to impeach him for his attempted extortion of Ukraine. Republicans are a dishonest disgrace for defending Trump despite his admission of guilt.
Remember that on Oct. 3, Trump was asked by a reporter: “What exactly did you hope Zelensky would do about the Bidens after your phone call?” Trump replied: “Well, I would think that, if they were honest about it, they’d start a major investigation into the Bidens.” (He also went on to brazenly demand that “China should start an investigation into the Bidens.”) Trump delivered the same message to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in their July 25 phone call. The rough transcript has Zelensky asking for weapons and Trump responding, “I would like you to do us a favor though,” before going on to ask for an investigation of Joe Biden and conspiracy theories involving the 2016 election.
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Because Trump impeached himself with his own words, the only defense Republicans can muster is to simply ignore the evidence. “The Daily Show” aired a hilarious segment in which Trump supporters repeat his mantra of “read the transcript” before admitting that they actually haven’t read it.
Republican politicians are just as egregious in dodging inconvenient truths. On Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.) whether “you would be okay with a president, say, Elizabeth Warren, asking a foreign government to investigate her top Republican rival?” Paul replied, in a masterpiece of sophistry, that the premise of the question “is completely untrue,” because Trump did not “call up and say, investigate my rival.” Instead, Paul claimed, Trump said to “investigate a person.” So Paul’s defense boils down to the fact that Trump demanded an investigation of “Biden” rather than a “rival.” This makes as much sense as Republicans arguing, as they did all day Wednesday, that Democrats are wasting too much time on impeachment — and also that they are concluding the investigation too soon. Both can’t be true.
Today’s Republicans echo the late Rep. Earl Landgrebe, who during Watergate famously said, “Don’t confuse with me with the facts. I’ve got a closed mind.” They ignore their obligations to the Constitution and the country. How can they possibly pretend that the author of the bizarre, rambling letter that the White House sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) on Tuesday — a screed full of lies, rage and self-pity — is fit to hold the nation’s highest office? Pelosi’s speech on the House floor to kick off the impeachment debate, striking a somber, dignified and patriotic tone, reflects a contrast between the two parties that is deeply unflattering to the GOP.
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Contrary to Republican accusations, Democrats are not pursuing partisan advantage by impeaching Trump. If politics were all that mattered, they would never have proceeded with impeachment because of the risk of a political backlash. That is, in fact, why Pelosi refused to move forward with impeachment even after special counsel Robert S. Mueller III documented numerous examples of obstruction of justice. She was finally compelled to act after Trump was discovered trying to solicit foreign election interference — again.
Opinion | Impeachment is a victory for Trumpism
The House impeached Trump, but it was a victory for alternative facts, Russian disinformation and Fox News, says columnist Dana Milbank. (Video: Joy Sharon Yi, Kate Woodsome/Photo: Getty/The Washington Post)
Even as the impeachment proceedings continue, the president’s personal lawyer is continuing to solicit help from shady Ukrainian politicians. Rudolph Giuliani has practically taped an “Impeach Me” sign on Trump’s back, yet Republicans pretend not to notice. By encouraging Giuliani’s escapades as he is being impeached, Trump makes clear that he considers himself above the law. Republicans evidently agree. Democrats do not.
I am not a Democrat, but I have nothing but admiration for all of the Democrats representing pro-Trump districts who are aware of the political peril they face but support impeachment anyway, simply because it is the right thing to do. One of those vulnerable members, Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, told MSNBC on Wednesday: “I’ve had countless people tell me that this going to be the end of my career. There just are some moments where you can’t look at a poll and you can’t make a decision based on political expediency.”
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Slotkin and other vulnerable Democrats who vote for impeachment because the evidence compels it are profiles in courage. Republicans who vote against impeachment despite the evidence are profiles in cowardice. Don’t speak of the two parties as if they were somehow equal. The Democrats are upholding the rule of law; Republicans are undermining it.Opinions
Impeachment isn’t Democrats vs. Republicans. It’s right vs. wrong.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol as debate on the articles of impeachment against President Trump continues on Wednesday. (Drew Angerer/AFP/Getty Images)
The typical journalist’s way to report on the impeachment vote in faux-evenhanded fashion is to depict it as another sign of unending partisan conflict. As a Wall Street Journal headline put it: “In Impeachment, Tribalization of Politics Becomes Almost Complete.” This is undoubtedly true given the predictable party-line vote. But one should not imply that because the two parties disagree, they have equally legitimate arguments. That is not the case. Impeachment is not Democrats vs. Republicans. It’s right vs. wrong.
Of course there is partisanship on both sides — and Democrats should rue their hyperbolic criticisms of past Republican standard-bearers, which leave them open to the charge that they are crying wolf today. But just because George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John McCain and other Republicans were not as bad as Democrats said doesn’t mean they are wrong about Trump. I disagreed with Democrats then, but I agree with them now. Democrats are right to call Trump a uniquely awful president — and they are right to impeach him for his attempted extortion of Ukraine. Republicans are a dishonest disgrace for defending Trump despite his admission of guilt.
Remember that on Oct. 3, Trump was asked by a reporter: “What exactly did you hope Zelensky would do about the Bidens after your phone call?” Trump replied: “Well, I would think that, if they were honest about it, they’d start a major investigation into the Bidens.” (He also went on to brazenly demand that “China should start an investigation into the Bidens.”) Trump delivered the same message to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in their July 25 phone call. The rough transcript has Zelensky asking for weapons and Trump responding, “I would like you to do us a favor though,” before going on to ask for an investigation of Joe Biden and conspiracy theories involving the 2016 election.
AD
Because Trump impeached himself with his own words, the only defense Republicans can muster is to simply ignore the evidence. “The Daily Show” aired a hilarious segment in which Trump supporters repeat his mantra of “read the transcript” before admitting that they actually haven’t read it.
Republican politicians are just as egregious in dodging inconvenient truths. On Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.) whether “you would be okay with a president, say, Elizabeth Warren, asking a foreign government to investigate her top Republican rival?” Paul replied, in a masterpiece of sophistry, that the premise of the question “is completely untrue,” because Trump did not “call up and say, investigate my rival.” Instead, Paul claimed, Trump said to “investigate a person.” So Paul’s defense boils down to the fact that Trump demanded an investigation of “Biden” rather than a “rival.” This makes as much sense as Republicans arguing, as they did all day Wednesday, that Democrats are wasting too much time on impeachment — and also that they are concluding the investigation too soon. Both can’t be true.
Today’s Republicans echo the late Rep. Earl Landgrebe, who during Watergate famously said, “Don’t confuse with me with the facts. I’ve got a closed mind.” They ignore their obligations to the Constitution and the country. How can they possibly pretend that the author of the bizarre, rambling letter that the White House sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) on Tuesday — a screed full of lies, rage and self-pity — is fit to hold the nation’s highest office? Pelosi’s speech on the House floor to kick off the impeachment debate, striking a somber, dignified and patriotic tone, reflects a contrast between the two parties that is deeply unflattering to the GOP.
AD
Contrary to Republican accusations, Democrats are not pursuing partisan advantage by impeaching Trump. If politics were all that mattered, they would never have proceeded with impeachment because of the risk of a political backlash. That is, in fact, why Pelosi refused to move forward with impeachment even after special counsel Robert S. Mueller III documented numerous examples of obstruction of justice. She was finally compelled to act after Trump was discovered trying to solicit foreign election interference — again.
Opinion | Impeachment is a victory for Trumpism
The House impeached Trump, but it was a victory for alternative facts, Russian disinformation and Fox News, says columnist Dana Milbank. (Video: Joy Sharon Yi, Kate Woodsome/Photo: Getty/The Washington Post)
Even as the impeachment proceedings continue, the president’s personal lawyer is continuing to solicit help from shady Ukrainian politicians. Rudolph Giuliani has practically taped an “Impeach Me” sign on Trump’s back, yet Republicans pretend not to notice. By encouraging Giuliani’s escapades as he is being impeached, Trump makes clear that he considers himself above the law. Republicans evidently agree. Democrats do not.
I am not a Democrat, but I have nothing but admiration for all of the Democrats representing pro-Trump districts who are aware of the political peril they face but support impeachment anyway, simply because it is the right thing to do. One of those vulnerable members, Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, told MSNBC on Wednesday: “I’ve had countless people tell me that this going to be the end of my career. There just are some moments where you can’t look at a poll and you can’t make a decision based on political expediency.”
AD
Slotkin and other vulnerable Democrats who vote for impeachment because the evidence compels it are profiles in courage. Republicans who vote against impeachment despite the evidence are profiles in cowardice. Don’t speak of the two parties as if they were somehow equal. The Democrats are upholding the rule of law; Republicans are undermining it.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
Subscribe today and get unlimited access to OnPoint, the Big Picture, the PS archive of more than 14,000 commentaries, and our annual magazine, for less than $2 a week.