Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Imagine yourself a committed liberal Democrat. In 2008 -- after eight years of a presidency you regarded as plucked from the darker recesses of Dante's mind -- you get a man who is the seeming embodiment of everything that is Good and True in American liberalism elected to the White House. Then, four years later, that very same man has, by any reasonable estimation, utterly failed to repair a tattered economy. What do you do?
Well, if you're Mother Jones' Clive Thompson, you set pen to paper to write one of the most barkingly mad pieces ever beheld by the human eye -- one that proposes the idea that the nation should actually be aspiring towards an economy with no growth. And, before the laudanum wears off, you seriously entertain writing passages like these:
...To move away from growth, we'll all have to work a lot less...Handled correctly, this could bring about an explosion of free time that could utterly transform the way we live, no-growth economists say. It could lead to a renaissance in the arts and sciences, as well as a reconnection with the natural world. Parents with lighter workloads could home-school their children if they liked, or look after sick relatives—dramatically reshaping the landscape of education and elder care.
Or this:
The no-growthers argue that a world with fewer yawning inequities between the rich and poor would be more stable; but quite apart from that, their models require stabilizing world population, and raising the economic lot of the poor is a proven way to do that.
Given the shift in wealth needed to accomplish this, Americans would need to turn back the clock to well before 1983; in fact, we'd be pretty lucky even to find ourselves where we were in 1960—when the median family made $35,994 in today's dollars (versus $61,932 in 2008).
I can't help but think that income reduction on that scale might get in the way of all those leisurely family afternoons handcrafting ceramics and doing recreational work on string theory. Not that that's the only problem at work here:
The vexing reality is that the no-growth thinkers simply don't know how things would shake out. We don't have any realistic examples to learn from, after all. In the past, the only no-growth societies were agrarian or consisted of hunter-gatherers.
So no one's ever experimented with your theory besides man in his most primitive social form (who wasn't exactly doing it voluntarily). Think there's a message there?
But for a breezy wave-off, no passage rivals this one:
There are other aspects of no-growth theory—like the population-stabilizing businesss—that could chill partisans of any stripe. To halt population growth, you need to reduce global fertility rates to an average of about two children per couple. But if boosting poor people's means doesn't defuse the population bomb, what then? Population control by mandate is essentially totalitarianism.
So, not exactly a walk in the park.
The word "essentially" in that last passage may be the most unnecessary adverb in human history. "Not exactly a walk in the park"? No, a walk in the killing fields.
The entire piece must be read to be believed. By the time you're done, you'll want some of Mr. Thompson's laudanum.
- Comment (27)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments:
Jul '11
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
I like the part where we will have to work a lot less which could lead to a renaissance in the arts and sciences. It is nice to see somebody on the left admit that art and science as practiced today is not work.
Jun '10
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Troy Senik, Ed.: "We don't have any realistic examples to learn from, after all. In the past, the only no-growth societies were agrarian or consisted of hunter-gatherers."
So no one's ever experimented with your theory besides man in his most primitive social form...
. . .
It seems you are aware that there was a modern effort to "experiment with [his] theory.
"To create a classless agrarian society without greed" is exactly what the Khmer Rouge was attempting to bring forth in Cambodia.
Also, if there's no growth, what are the additional 143,000 new entrants into the working age population each month going to do?
Besides macrame...
May '10
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
At $35K, the only recreational string theory that a family will be doing is trying to make utilitarian objects with macramé.
Mar '11
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...and all the booze in Clive's liquor cabinet!
Occupy Clive's Pad!
Jun '11
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Troy Senik, Ed.:
I love (1) the presumption that "no-growth economist" is actually a recognized discipline or field of study (I Googled it with quotation marks -- there ain't no there, there); and (2) the use of the plural economists, as if there are many such people running around with this theory.
You have to at least give Clive credit for recognizing that "friends of mine who live in trees and crap in the woods" would be less persuasive as source authority for his story than "no-growth economists."
Edited on May 30, 2012 at 8:11pmMay '10
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
There's the conundrum. Clive wants families to have more free time and reconnect yet simultaneously lower birthrates. Unfortunately for him, the more families reconnect the more the birthrates go up.
Apr '11
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Ok, I'll give up my salary and work less, but not until all the liberals on Manhattan's Upper West Side, all the Hollywood libs, public union employees, liberal journos and liberal pliticians go 1st.
Sep '10
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Aaaahh I can see it now, 35,000 per year and special police to monitor my reproductive processes. Sounds like Utopia to me.
I would quibble with the that has not been tried claim. This sounds like a "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" economy. That has been tried and it was thrown overboard by the communist in Lenin's lifetime.
Jun '10
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Barking Mad Clive obviously never heard the old proverb: "The idle mind is the devil's workshop." And you don't need to be religious to believe that.
Given human nature, instead of a renaissance of the arts, I see porn sites handling a lot more traffic.
Part of the reason work is good is that it takes time away from raping and pillaging. It tends also to civilize the worker, just as parenthood and marriage do.
No one would accuse Professor Benjamin Friedman of the Harvard economics faculty of being a wild-eyed conservative, or even any kind of conservative. He wrote a book that criticized President Reagan's economics. Yet in 2005, he wrote The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, wherein he argues, among other things, that there is a direct link between economic growth and freedom. I don't agree with many of his policy prescriptions, but even he acknowledges that the end of growth will lead to the end of freedom. Perhaps we could get Clive a copy.
Edited on May 30, 2012 at 8:58pmMar '11
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
I'll go slightly contrarian here and say that low growth may indeed be a sign of a healthy, well-developed society. The main problem with Clive Thompson's argument is his (predictable) belief that the changes he desires must be centrally planned.
Experience shows that wealthy countries naturally have much lower growth rates than developing ones. Couple this with the decline in birth rates which always parallels modernization, plus the fact that many middle and upper class Americans already shorten their working hours through early retirement, and Thompson's dream society seems to be emerging on its own.
And if Thompson really wants Americans to start living more frugally, there's a simple solution: make people pay for their own retirement and healthcare.
Thompson may be correct that some policymakers on the right are too fixated on GDP. But as so often, the best way for liberal goals to be realized is for the government to get out of the way.
Edited on May 30, 2012 at 8:57pmJul '10
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
So we raise up the economic lot of the poor by making everyone poor. Yeah, that sounds about right.
The great thing about rags like Mother Jones and The Nation is that they expose the implicit premises of mainstream liberal thought. The bad news is that we rarely (if ever) convince moderates of this.
Jun '10
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Troy Senik, Ed.:
The word "essentially" in that last passage may be the most unnecessary adverb in human history.
Maybe we could use Uncle Joe's formulation for a little extra emphasis?
"Population control by mandate is literally totalitarianism. I mean that literally, and not figuratively."
Apr '11
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
tabula rasa: He wrote a book that criticized President Reagan's economics. Yet in 2005, he wrote The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, wherein he argues, among other things, that there is a direct link between economic growth and freedom. I don't agree with many of his policy prescriptions, but even he acknowledges that the end of growth will lead to the end of freedom. Perhaps we could get Clive a copy. · 19 minutes ago
Edited 8 minutes ago
What's the loss of a little freedom when you have a miserably failed presidency to defend?
Apr '11
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Are we sure this piece isn't actually some cast off of H.G. Wells' when he was banging out "The Time Machine?" Perhaps an excursus on the philosophical road to the Eloi (not to mention Morlock) society?
Mar '12
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Barkingly mad, indeed. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how his post got past the editors. Also, I can't help but wonder about what happens to people, in Thompson's world, that seek to get ahead and improve their lot by working a bit harder than their peers.
Edited on May 30, 2012 at 10:03pmJun '10
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
ctruppi
tabula rasa: He wrote a book that criticized President Reagan's economics. Yet in 2005, he wrote The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, wherein he argues, among other things, that there is a direct link between economic growth and freedom. I don't agree with many of his policy prescriptions, but even he acknowledges that the end of growth will lead to the end of freedom. Perhaps we could get Clive a copy. · 19 minutes ago
Edited 8 minutes ago
What's the loss of a little freedom when you have a miserably failed presidency to defend? · 1 hour ago
Sorry. I keep getting off-script.
May '10
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Isn't a "no-growth economist" an oxymoron?
Mar '12
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
I'll see Mendel's slight contrarian, and raise him. I think there is a problem with the default assumption that Western states need economic growth to continue at the rates achieved over the last 100 years. Those rates reflect a one-shot opportunity of moving masses from agrarian subsistence to urban industrialism (such as China and India are now seeing), and are mathematically unsustainable, absent ponzi-like growth in the populations. Prosperity induces the opposite; the 1970 populations of Europe, Canada, Japan and the US have all seen negative population growth.
Ironically, the main pressures on individuals to demand unsustainable rates of economic growth come from direct and indirect taxation resulting from the welfare state (pensions, healthcare costs, education) and increased energy and food costs resulting from the Green war on nukes and carbon.
Since the mid 90s, I've had the feeling that the US policy makers have inflated one bubble after another (dot com, real estate, financial derivatives, higher ed) to continue the illusion of 80s economic growth rates and full employment, as well as to avoid dealing with the inherent unsustainability of the welfare state pensions and healthcare costs.
Mar '11
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Amen. As long as "growth" = "buying lots of useless Chinese crap", all we're going to get is more debt and more bubbles. So add me to the heretic train when I say that people would be better off slowing down in the rat race and assessing what is really important in their lives. I am by no means a supporter of planned economies or limits on what one can earn or how many kids they can have... the exact opposite, in fact... but I was one of the people that hoped the silver lining from the 2008 crash was that Americans would re-assess their lives and see that perhaps it's not always about the bigger house or the bigger car or the bigger TV. I'm against all propped up bubbles... the government spending kind AND the meaningless consumption and debt driven kind.
Mar '12
Re: Liberalism, in Self-Parody
Douglas
As long as "growth" = "buying lots of useless Chinese crap", all we're going to get is more debt and more bubbles. So add me to the heretic train when I say that people would be better off slowing down in the rat race and assessing what is really important in their lives... I'm against all propped up bubbles... the government spending kind AND the meaningless consumption and debt driven kind. · 26 minutes ago
The whole premise of Keynesian economics is that consumer demand is not sufficient; government needs to create programs (initially Social Security, Medicare then federal housing guarantees) that increase consumer demand, by reducing the normal tendency of humans to personally save for old age and large purchases. The results are all too apparent to see; each generation since the Depression has saved less and borrowed more to buy "Chinese crap," ever bigger houses and more toys.