Reclaiming Community
Nov 9, 2018 DANI RODRIK
PreviousNext
No one can deny that this consumer- and market-centric vision of the economy has produced plenty of fruit. The dazzling array of consumer goods available in the megastores or Apple outlets of any major city in the world would have been unimaginable as recently as a generation ago.But clearly something has gone wrong in the meantime. The economic and social divisions within our societies have provoked a broad backlash in a wide range of settings – from the United States, Italy, and Germany in the developed world to developing countries such as the Philippines and Brazil. This political turmoil suggests that economists' priorities may not have been entirely appropriate.
Two books, one forthcoming from Raghuram Rajan and another published this month by Oren Cass, revisit our economistic worldview and argue that we should instead put the health of our local communities front and center. Stable families, good jobs, strong schools, abundant and safe public spaces, and pride in local cultures and history – these are the essential elements of prosperous societies. Neither global markets nor the nation-state can adequately supply them, and sometimes markets and states undermine them.
The authors come from different vantage points. Rajan is an economist at the University of Chicago and a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Cass is at the right-of-center Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and was domestic policy director for Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. You would not necessarily expect either a Chicago economist or a moderate Republican to treat markets and hyper-globalization with skepticism. But both are disturbed by what they see as the effects on communities.
Rajan calls community the "third pillar" of prosperity, as important as the other two pillars – the state and market. No less than excessive centralized state power, he writes, unmanaged globalization can tear apart the fabric of local communities. Cass is explicit that US trade and immigration policy should focus on American workers first and foremost. This means ensuring that local labor markets are healthy and that there are plenty of goods jobs at decent wages. Both authors emphasize the gains from trade and reject US President Donald Trump's protectionism. But they agree we may have gone too far into hyper-globalization and paid insufficient attention to the costs for communities.
Economists' usual answer is to call for "greater labor market flexibility": workers should simply leave depressed areas and seek jobs elsewhere. But as Cass reminds us, geographical mobility has to be coupled with "the opportunity to stay." Even during times of significant migration, the bulk of local populations stayed put and needed good jobs and solid communities.When a local factory closes because a firm has decided to outsource to a supplier across the border, more is lost than the hundreds (or thousands) of jobs that move abroad. The impact is multiplied through reduced spending on local goods and services, which means workers and employers across the entire local economy feel the hit. The local government's tax revenues fall as well, so there is less money to spend on education and other public amenities. Anomie, family breakdown, opioid addiction, and other social ills often follow.
Alternatively, economists might recommend compensating the losers from economic change, through social transfers and other benefits. Leaving aside the feasibility of such transfers, it is doubtful that they are the solution. Joblessness will undermine individual and community wellbeing even if consumption levels are propped up through cash grants.
Ultimately, it is only through the creation and expansion of well-paying jobs that local communities can be made vital. Cass's proposal is to encourage employment through wage subsidies. Rajan emphasizes the role of local leaders who can mobilize community assets, generate social engagement on the part of local residents, and create a new image – all in the context of more supportive state policies and managed globalization.
Other economists have advocated regionally targeted manufacturing extension programs, fostering partnerships between local employers and universities. Yet others recommend local public spending, such as on job training programs for small and medium-sized enterprises.
We do not have a good fix on what works best, and a fair amount of policy experimentation will be needed to make progress. But the urgency of action is heightened by the fact that ongoing technological trends threaten to exacerbate communities' existing problems. New digital technologies tend to exhibit scale economies and network effects, which produce concentration rather than localization of production. Instead of diffusing gains, they create winner-take-all markets. The globalization of production networks magnifies such effects further.
How we balance these forces with the needs of communities will shape not only our economic fortunes, but also our social and political environment. As Cass and Rajan show, it is a problem that economists should no longer ignore.
DANI RODRIK
Dani Rodrik is Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the author of The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science, and, most recently, Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy.
-- Nov 9, 2018 DANI RODRIK
PreviousNext
No one can deny that this consumer- and market-centric vision of the economy has produced plenty of fruit. The dazzling array of consumer goods available in the megastores or Apple outlets of any major city in the world would have been unimaginable as recently as a generation ago.But clearly something has gone wrong in the meantime. The economic and social divisions within our societies have provoked a broad backlash in a wide range of settings – from the United States, Italy, and Germany in the developed world to developing countries such as the Philippines and Brazil. This political turmoil suggests that economists' priorities may not have been entirely appropriate.
Two books, one forthcoming from Raghuram Rajan and another published this month by Oren Cass, revisit our economistic worldview and argue that we should instead put the health of our local communities front and center. Stable families, good jobs, strong schools, abundant and safe public spaces, and pride in local cultures and history – these are the essential elements of prosperous societies. Neither global markets nor the nation-state can adequately supply them, and sometimes markets and states undermine them.
The authors come from different vantage points. Rajan is an economist at the University of Chicago and a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Cass is at the right-of-center Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and was domestic policy director for Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. You would not necessarily expect either a Chicago economist or a moderate Republican to treat markets and hyper-globalization with skepticism. But both are disturbed by what they see as the effects on communities.
Rajan calls community the "third pillar" of prosperity, as important as the other two pillars – the state and market. No less than excessive centralized state power, he writes, unmanaged globalization can tear apart the fabric of local communities. Cass is explicit that US trade and immigration policy should focus on American workers first and foremost. This means ensuring that local labor markets are healthy and that there are plenty of goods jobs at decent wages. Both authors emphasize the gains from trade and reject US President Donald Trump's protectionism. But they agree we may have gone too far into hyper-globalization and paid insufficient attention to the costs for communities.
Economists' usual answer is to call for "greater labor market flexibility": workers should simply leave depressed areas and seek jobs elsewhere. But as Cass reminds us, geographical mobility has to be coupled with "the opportunity to stay." Even during times of significant migration, the bulk of local populations stayed put and needed good jobs and solid communities.When a local factory closes because a firm has decided to outsource to a supplier across the border, more is lost than the hundreds (or thousands) of jobs that move abroad. The impact is multiplied through reduced spending on local goods and services, which means workers and employers across the entire local economy feel the hit. The local government's tax revenues fall as well, so there is less money to spend on education and other public amenities. Anomie, family breakdown, opioid addiction, and other social ills often follow.
Alternatively, economists might recommend compensating the losers from economic change, through social transfers and other benefits. Leaving aside the feasibility of such transfers, it is doubtful that they are the solution. Joblessness will undermine individual and community wellbeing even if consumption levels are propped up through cash grants.
Ultimately, it is only through the creation and expansion of well-paying jobs that local communities can be made vital. Cass's proposal is to encourage employment through wage subsidies. Rajan emphasizes the role of local leaders who can mobilize community assets, generate social engagement on the part of local residents, and create a new image – all in the context of more supportive state policies and managed globalization.
Other economists have advocated regionally targeted manufacturing extension programs, fostering partnerships between local employers and universities. Yet others recommend local public spending, such as on job training programs for small and medium-sized enterprises.
We do not have a good fix on what works best, and a fair amount of policy experimentation will be needed to make progress. But the urgency of action is heightened by the fact that ongoing technological trends threaten to exacerbate communities' existing problems. New digital technologies tend to exhibit scale economies and network effects, which produce concentration rather than localization of production. Instead of diffusing gains, they create winner-take-all markets. The globalization of production networks magnifies such effects further.
How we balance these forces with the needs of communities will shape not only our economic fortunes, but also our social and political environment. As Cass and Rajan show, it is a problem that economists should no longer ignore.
DANI RODRIK
Dani Rodrik is Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the author of The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science, and, most recently, Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy.
John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV
Harpers Ferry, WV
The Enlighten Radio Player Stream,
Sign UP HERE to get the Weekly Program Notes.
Check out Socialist Economics, the Enlighten Radio website
BERKELEY – Now that we are witnessing what looks like the historic decline of the West, it is worth asking what role economists might have played in the disasters of the past decade.
TRUMPONOMICS AND THE US MIDTERM ELECTIONS
Nov 2, 2018 PROJECT SYNDICATEinterviews ANGUS DEATON, et al.about the state of the US economy and its political implications.
6Add to BookmarksFrom the end of World War II until 2007, Western political leaders at least acted as if they were interested in achieving full employment, price stability, an acceptably fair distribution of income and wealth, and an open international order in which all countries would benefit from trade and finance. True, these goals were always in tension, such that we sometimes put growth incentives before income equality, and openness before the interests of specific workers or industries. Nevertheless, the general thrust of policymaking was toward all four objectives.
Then came 2008, when everything changed. The goal of full employment dropped off Western leaders' radar, even though there was neither a threat of inflation nor additional benefits to be gained from increased openness. Likewise, the goal of creating an international order that serves everyone was summarily abandoned. Both objectives were sacrificed in the interest of restoring the fortunes of the super-rich, perhaps with a distant hope that the wealth would "trickle down" someday.
At the macro level, the story of the post-2008 decade is almost always understood as a failure of economic analysis and communication. We economists supposedly failed to convey to politicians and bureaucrats what needed to be done, because we hadn't analyzed the situation fully and properly in real time.
Some economists, like Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, saw the dangers of the financial crisis, but greatly exaggerated the risks of public spending to boost employment in its aftermath. Others, like me, understood that expansionary monetary policies would not be enough; but, because we had looked at global imbalances the wrong way, we missed the principal source of risk – US financial mis-regulation.
Still others, like then-US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, understood the importance of keeping interest rates low, but overestimated the effectiveness of additional monetary-policy tools such as quantitative easing. The moral of the story is that if only we economists had spoken up sooner, been more convincing on the issues where we were right, and recognized where we were wrong, the situation today would be considerably better.
Specifically, in the years before the crisis, financial deregulation and tax cuts for the rich had been driving government deficits and debt ever higher, while further increasing inequality. Making matters worse, George W. Bush's administration decided to wage an ill-advised war against Iraq, effectively squandering America's credibility to lead the North Atlantic through the crisis years.The Columbia University historian Adam Tooze has little use for this narrative. In his new history of the post-2007 era, Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, he shows that the economic history of the past ten years has been driven more by deep historical currents than by technocrats' errors of analysis and communication.
It was also during this time that the Republican Party began to suffer a nervous breakdown. As if Bush's lack of qualifications and former Vice President Dick Cheney's war-mongering weren't bad enough, the party doubled down on its cynicism. In 2008, Republicans rallied behind the late Senator John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, a folksy demagogue who was even less suited for office than Bush or Cheney; and in 2010, the party was essentially hijacked by the populist Tea Party.
After the 2008 crash and the so-called Great Recession, years of tepid growth laid the groundwork for a political upheaval in 2016. While Republicans embraced a brutish, race-baiting reality-TV star, many Democrats swooned for a self-declared socialist senator with scarcely any legislative achievements to his name. "This denouement," Tooze writes, "might have seemed a little cartoonish," as if life was imitating the art of the HBO series "Veep."
Of course, we have yet to mention a key figure. Between the financial crisis of 2008 and the political crisis of 2016 came the presidency of Barack Obama. In 2004, when he was still a rising star in the Senate, Obama had warned that failing to build a "purple America" that supports the working and middle classes would lead to nativism and political breakdown.
Yet, after the crash, the Obama administration had little stomach for the medicine that former President Franklin D. Roosevelt had prescribed to address problems of such magnitude. "The country needs…bold persistent experimentation," Roosevelt said in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression. "It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."
The fact that Obama failed to take aggressive action, despite having recognized the need for it beforehand, is a testament to Tooze's central argument. Professional economists could not convince those in power of what needed to be done, because those in power were operating in a context of political breakdown and lost American credibility. With policymaking having been subjected to the malign influence of a rising plutocracy, economists calling for "bold persistent experimentation" were swimming against the tide – even though well-founded economic theories justified precisely that course of action.
Still, I do not find Tooze's arguments to be as strong as he thinks they are. We economists and our theories did make a big difference. With the exception of Greece, advanced economies experienced nothing like a rerun of the Great Depression, which was a very real possibility at the height of the crisis. Had we been smarter, more articulate, and less divided and distracted by red herrings, we might have made a bigger difference. But that doesn't mean we made no difference at all.