People walk along Wall Street in the financial district in New York City

Comments 39

什么在阻止左翼？

Apr 10, 2018 Dani Rodrik

坎布里奇—为什么民主政治制度没有能够足够快速地对仇恨做出反应，导致专制民粹主义者成功利用了它们——不平等性和经济焦虑、社会地位感的下降、精英和普通老百姓之间的裂痕？政治党派，特别是中左翼如果能采取更果断的日程的话，也许右翼本土论政治运动的崛起本可避免。

理论上，不平等的加剧导致再分配的要求。民主政客的应对之道应该是向富人征收更多税，并将所得到的收入用在后进人群头上。这一直觉由艾伦·梅尔泽尔（Allan Meltzer）和斯科特·理查德（Scott Richard）的著名政治经济学论文形式化：中位和平均选民的收入差距越大，税收就越重，再分配程度也越高。

但在实践中，民主政体与此南辕北辙。所得税的累进性下降，对累退的消费税的依赖增加，对资本的征税出现了全球竞相降低的现象。政府不去刺激基础设施投资，反而采取对低技能工人伤害尤其大的紧缩政策。大银行和公司得到援助，但家庭却得不到。在美国，最低工资没有得到充分调整，其真实水平有所下降。

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Dani Rodrik

Writing for PS since 1998
150 Commentaries

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.

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The Syndicate Aug 5, 2018

There is no way on any sensible political analysis that the Democrats - feted by Wall Street and billionnaires - are "left wing". They are just less right-wing than the GOP. At the left-most fringes of the Democrats are those who are so left-wing that they are entering the rest of global politics from the right.
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Paul Davidson May 14, 2018

The other factor rarely mentioned in ‘post-war’ analyses of capitalism is that, in what is broadly called The West, there has been no military service conscription for at least three generations. For over fifty years, there has been no requirement of the general population of the Western democracies to lay down your own life in pursuit of capitalist wars, which are now fought by smaller specialist armies or in the digital marketplace…. and now, as we are seeing, via social media.

Inevitably perhaps, when your own life is not at stake and conspicuous consumption is the order of the day, one is less concerned about the fundamentals of ‘a home fit for heroes’...... going for the weekly supermarket shop, coming home to running water and instant energy for an evening of TV movies and video games, with your favourite food a phonecall away, is not heroic, and most people know it.

So when our elites - brahmin or mercantile - tell us we don’t deserve what our grandparents and great grandparents laid down their lives for, the generalised majority response tends to variations on the theme of ‘whatever’. And if anyone takes time to point out that the fabric of our consumer lifestyles is steadily unravelling just across the Western border - and that the same thread leads right to the heart of our own democratic institutions - they will as often as not be met with a request for more popcorn.
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vivek iyer May 5, 2018

Rodrik mentions the 'Brahmin Left' but not the new 'pariah' class of immigrants whose sweated labour defeats 'Baumol cost disease' in the Service & Construction sector and gives the upper middle class an enviable life-style.
The old working class is afraid that redistribution will benefit immigrants more than proportionately. They know the 'Brahmin Left' may have more sympathy for their own house-maids than for those left behind in the 'Rust Belt'. Thus they have no incentive to adhere to a Brahmin led coalition.
By contrast, the old working class appears to have lost its aversion to the plutocrat because old style manufacturing has lost salience or been off shored. In the old days, if Henry Ford and his ilk paid higher taxes then they would have less money to pay Pinkertons or blacklegs. The old equation between wealth and illegitimate power- which would be used against Trade Unions- has broken down. No doubt, labour is still being sweated- but it happens in some far away country.
Why not have an explicitly 'nativist' Left which places the prosperity of the indigenous working class front and center of its campaign? It could be clarified that 'indigenous' means 'citizen' irrespective of ethnicity. After all, what is already happening is a worsening of working conditions and a hostile environment for the non-citizen whose sweated labour is so essential for the economy. Perhaps the answer is that the Left still has a heart and can't embrace such an immoral position.
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Enrique Woll Battistini Apr 17, 2018

Clearly the basically unfettered capitalism of today is a failed socioeconomic system that is exterminating the poor and enriching the rich at an increasing pace and will lead in short order to civil unrest, and soon after, to global revolt, warfare and total social chaos. This perverse result is built into the system given the unbalanced, unfair, and self-reinforcing upward-flow nature of its income and wealth distribution system in society which cannot and will not be contained through the simplistic and shortsighted solutions offered by the progressive taxation systems implemented today. A cursory analytical look at Thomas Piketty's Thesis clearly suggests that the intrinsic nature of Capitalism ensures that the rich will get richer and the poor poorer, ad infinitum, till annihilation of the poorest, in any society in any country, unless taxation through a Sole Consumption Tax (SCT) is used to regularly redistribute the wealth created in all societies, within societies, in such a way as to preempt consumption by the poorest from falling below the threshold of autonomous survival with monotonically increasing welfare potential, that would bring their share of wealth consumption irreversibly and asymptotically closer to consumption by the richest of the rich over time.

https://www.academia.edu/36314694/BUZZFLASH_-_Thieves_in_the_Suites_-_Todays_Captains_of_Corporate_Capitalism_-_My_comments_-_2018032701.docx
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John Landrum Apr 16, 2018

This commentary makes three points worth noting:
1. The author states that democrats should increase taxes and re-distribute more productive members of society’s earnings to the so-called “less well off”. The author does not define “less well off”, so it would appear Food Stamps for 52,000,000 Americans may not be enough even if 71% of those receiving this food subsidy are over-weight or obese, which is the case. And there is no mention of limits on transfers or how long these transfers go on or how they provide significant disincentives to work. Simply, tax the earnings from “earners” and re-distribute that money to “non-earners” and leave it that.
2. It is nice to hear a leftist academic acknowledge that the democrats in America focus only on “identity politics”, which in turn, creates “victimhood” within that class and must be addressed only in politically correct terms, which then leads democrats to their “cult of diversity” but never seems to focus on “We the People” and the individual's needs within this American society and a culture. Thanks for acknowledging the utter failure of the democrats.
3. And last, the very interesting thought that “ordinary American voters do not seem to be very interested in raising top marginal tax rates or in greater social transfers.” Welcome, Dani, to the United States of America and your new found understanding that American workers do not want handouts. Americans want to work, they want to support their families in a dignified manner, they want to have their children educated in good schools, they want to live in safe neighborhoods, they want their children to be better off than they are, whatever their economic status, and they want to preserve the American Culture and the American Creed. This commentary implies that democrats just need to tell to “re-distribution story” a little better and the un-educated working men and women of America will buy in. I doubt that that will ever be the case.

It is nice, however, to see at least one academic is finally learning something about the American people. Maybe others on the left can learn these same lessons about this country and its people.
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Robert REYNOLDS Apr 16, 2018

Where is Karl Marx when we so desperately need him?
- hanno achenbach Apr 20, 2018
  
  Who?
  - Robert REYNOLDS Apr 20, 2018
    
    You stay with Groucho, Hanno! You may understand him better!
    - hanno achenbach Apr 20, 2018
      
      Yeah, Karl will be a big help, or so you believe.
      - Robert REYNOLDS Apr 20, 2018
        
        I certainly do think that Karl had many good ideas. I do not totally supported all of his views but we need to curb the excesses of free-market capitalism. What would you suggest, Hanno?
        
        hanno achenbach Apr 20, 2018
        
        Well, Marx's solution was the dictatorship of the proletariat - will that help?
        
        For an objective appreciation, read Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy
        
        Robert REYNOLDS Apr 20, 2018
        
        Hi Hanno,
        Thank you for your reply and the link. I have to go to work but I will mark this email as 'unread' and get back to you ASAP. (I will read the article on the link first.)
        Cheers,
        Rob
        
        Robert REYNOLDS Apr 21, 2018
        
        Hanno, I will keep this book in mind should I have the time to read it.
        
        In the meantime I will be hoping for the re-emergence of a genuine and democratic socialist party which I can feel comfortable voting for at the next election.
        
        However Hanno, as I am sure you know only too well, should such a party ever come along and actually get elected, then the capitalist class will leave no stone unturned in overthrowing such a democratically elected government (should all other efforts to bring it down with economic sanctions and other forms of sabotage fail).
        
        You know Hanno we live in a capitalist dictatorship already. Someone like Salvador Allende might have been able to add something to this view - that is, if he had not been brutally murdered in an American inspired coup in 1973. He is only one example of what happens to those who seriously oppose capitalism.
        
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j. von Hettlingen Apr 16, 2018

Dani Rodrik explains what has “stopped” Democrats in the US and centre-left parties in Western Europe from gaining popular support among voters – their inability to reverse what their predecessors failed to deliver. On both sides of the Atlantic, leaders like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair embraced neoliberalism, which worked well in the boom years of the turn of the century. But they could not contain the disruptive force of globalisation, and the decline of traditional employment.
Today’s mainstream leftwingers seem to have little to offer to their vulnerable core voters and lose out to right-wing populists or nationalists. The fallout from the 2008 financial crash – high unemployment, lower living standards, public spending cuts due to austerity measures – had been too overwhelming. For too long they had been complacent about long-term challenges, such as globalisation, automation, immigration, changing class identities, declining union membership etc.
Failing to address the fears of the working class, moderate left leaders leave a niche behind only to be filled by far-right populist parties, that have attracted the support of many who traditionally supported the centre-left. These voters feel neglected by mainstream politicians who pay more attention to “identity politics” revolving around racial equality and LGBT rights etc. than to their “bread-and-butter issues of incomes and jobs.” The rise of a new anti-capitalist, anti-globalisation, anti-establishment far left has proved equally hapless, as it was the case in the 2017 presidential election in France. The far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen fared much better among France’s poor than the far-left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélanchon.
The author says left-wing parties have been “increasingly captured” by liberals and the “well-educated elite,” who are being called the “Brahmin Left” by Thomas Ppiketty. This category of left-leaning liberals – unlike the “Merchant” class whose members still vote for right-wing parties – is “not friendly to redistribution, because it believes in meritocracy – a world in which effort gets rewarded and low incomes are more likely to be the result of insufficient effort than poor luck.”
The problem is that many ordinary American voters are not particularly responsive to the grievances of their poor compatriots. They fight to defend their middle class living standards, yet “do not seem to be very interested in raising top marginal tax rates or in greater social transfers. This seems to be true even when they are aware of – and concerned by – the sharp rise in inequality.” The author points out an “apparent paradox” – these voters have “very low levels of trust in government’s ability to address inequality.” Equally low are the “levels of support for anti-poverty policies.” Working class voters resent their government for bailing out big banks and corporations, while not households. They want access to universal health care, an increaded minimum wage and higher taxes on their wealthiest citizens.
Democrats are marginally better than Republicans at responding to the desires of the middle class. However they also pander to rich donors for campaign finances. It is wealth, not education or political activism, what makes politicians respond. Perhaps young people on both sides of the Atlantic might be able to revive the centre-left. Polls show that they have a slightly positive view of socialism and a slightly negative view of capitalism. In America they are fed up with a political system driven by big money, and they want to address issues that matter to them: environmental degradation, rampant inequality, the rise of greed and the lack of empathy in today’s modern society, apart from economics and politics.
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Bryan B Apr 15, 2018

The email blurb promoting the article pointed out the need for better stories to promote democratic policies. So I tuned in to hear about how to construct and deliver such stories. Alas, the article barely mentioned that point at the end. I'm hoping the author will follow up with more detail as I think the 'stories' are one of populism's biggest selling points.
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Frank Manheim Apr 15, 2018

Thoughtful piece but it left significant omissions. The primitive idea that inequality can be effectively dealt with mainly by redistribution of wealth to the poor was long ago abandoned by advanced socialist nations in Europe. At best such assistance offers a minimal existence. In the 1980s Sweden and other nations discovered the market. They pursued a strong social net that assured health care, educational access, and pensions. But they recognized that it is primarily the private market that produced wealth, delivered meaningful employment and productivity to the nation. Instead of creating a morass of environmental laws and regulations as the U.S. did, leading European nations consolidated and decentralized environmental regulations. No European nation has abandoned its traditional industries as the U.S. has. Although Europeans may lack the tradition of entrepreneurialism and out of the box innovation characteristic of the U.S. they lack the distrust of authority and impulsive extremism that has done such damage to public policy. We would do well to study European experience in rational governance.
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nigel southway Apr 15, 2018

Good article on the history of what happened, but not so much on the fix.... the reason is that conventional party politics wont fix this left or right.. it needs strong more independent leadership and populist and nativist may be appropriate as the issue is managing globalization better. The elites have lost touch with the people... Its not about politics as much as its about trust in society using politics as advertised.
- Barry Rosenfeld Apr 15, 2018
  
  Read "Dream Hoarders" to see how the "liberals" talk equality while using every advantage to maintain their advantages. "Meritocracy" works only when all are at the same starting line.
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Zev Moses Apr 15, 2018

There's a very simple solution. Support the newly emerged leftist politicians who are fighting for exactly the kind of redistribute policies that this article shows we so badly need. Looking forward to future columns in PS in support of Jeremy Corbyn.
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Emm Bee Apr 13, 2018

Professor Rodrik, is populism always right-wing and is progressivism inherently of the left? Whatever happened to socialism? Are socialists always liberal or progressive? Seems we have become very jumbled-up with political labels and personally I believe this is confusing almost everyone.
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Richard Graham Apr 12, 2018

Typical nonsense: identity politics was about inclusion in the economy, politics, and social life of society; about the ending of bigotries of various sorts. Therefore, anti-prejudice identity politics was always about jobs, income, and social class.
- Peter Schaeffer Apr 13, 2018
  
  Identity politics isn't about "inclusion". It is about exclusion. Exclusion of the middle-class so that the cosmopolitan elite can preen their moral superiority while pocketing the profits of Open Borders and "free trade".
  
  Quote from a French analyst (Guilluy)
  
  "the rhetoric of an “open society” is “a smokescreen meant to hide the emergence of a closed society, walled off for the benefit of the upper classes.”"
  
  Or why not just quote Hillary (remember her?).
  
  “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow….would that end racism? Would that end sexism?”
  
  Of course, for a sample of what "inclusion" really means, consider the following headline.
  
  "'Girls must be saved from going through this hell': Call for public inquiry into Telford sex scandal as it emerges up to 1,000 children as young as 11 were drugged, beaten and raped over 40 years"
  - Barry Rosenfeld Apr 15, 2018
    
    The elites on the left talk "liberalism" and "inclusion," but practice NIMBY. Talk is cheap which is why one hears so much from these people. Those who are ahead do all they can to maintain their lead. Does anyone really believe that a kid from an inner city public school can compete with kids from high tuition private schools, the extra cost equipment and culturally advantages trips, the non-salary "internships" - and other benefits that arise from the personal connections of well educated and high income parents?
    
    The answer is "yes," according to those well educated and high income "liberals," who live in neighbourhoods that are zoned to prohibit the building of small-lot, relatively inexpensive, homes.
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- Peter Schaeffer Apr 13, 2018
  
  "identity politics was about inclusion in the economy"
  
  What nonsense. Identity politics is about sacrificing the interests of ordinary people to advance the ideological interests of the "other". In the U.S. the minimum wage has fallen by 37% since 1968 (by 62% adjusted for productivity). But don't worry men can now "decide they are women" and use women's bathrooms. Any state that dares to suggest that men don't belong in women's bathrooms gets boycotted.
  
  Of course, it's not just the minimum wage that has crashed. Real wages for workers have declined since the 1970s. Male Labor Force Participation (LFP) has crashed. Female LFP has fallen since 2000. Of course, housing affordability has declined and inequality has soared.
  
  Identity politics are the cloaking device liberals/neoliberals use to get away with an endless (and highly successful) war on the middle-class. The "Party of Davos" has never been shy about using identity politics to advance their own fortunes at the expense of everyone else.
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Walt French Apr 10, 2018

I find it interesting that “trust in government” has been declining since the '60s, but that it's “identity elitism” that's prevented Democrats from attending to lower-income voters.

Of course, the '60s saw a dramatic flip of Southern Democrats first into George Wallace's American Independence Party that won 45 electoral votes, and then to the GOP.

Much of that “distrust” has come from the US government being more-or-less committed to the Civil Rights reforms of the 70s. Many recent studies show, for instance, Trump getting higher vote shares the higher the “racial resentment” score in groups.

None of this has anything to do with Dems being captured by Thatcherite neoliberalism and the banks, except to the extent that the GOP has successfully demagogued the issue.

In the end, maybe the comment, “beliefs about what the government can and should do are not immutable” may best capture what's going on: the GOP has managed to associate racial equality politics with “elitism” in a way that covers up their own closer identification with “free market liberalism” and rising inequality. Certainly, I don't see anything to contradict that.
- Peter Schaeffer Apr 11, 2018
  
  Is their 'racial resentment' in the U.S.? Of course, racial discrimination always leads to resentment. Take a look at the facts about college admissions in the U.S.
  
  “How much harder is it for an Asian-American applicant? Mr. Zhao and the complaint cite 2009 research by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade that found an Asian-American student must earn an SAT score 140 points higher than a white student, 270 points higher than a Hispanic and 450 points higher than an African-American, all else being equal. So if a white applicant scored 2160 on the SAT — lower than last year’s Harvard average — an Asian-American would need to hit 2300, well into the 99% percentile, to have an equal chance at getting in.”
  
  Sadly, daring to object to discrimination against whites and Asians is what Walt French calls 'racial resentment'. For anyone being honest, the Democratic party has long been captured by upscale identity politics elites who worship racial/sexual/ethnic politics and neoliberalism. Bill Clinton personally signed the repeal of Glass Steagall and NAFTA. Hillary actually said...
  
  “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow….would that end racism? Would that end sexism?”
  
  No one made her say that. Her statement was just the boilerplate neoliberalism and identity politics she believes in.
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Peter Schaeffer Apr 10, 2018

D. Rodrik (to his credit) recognizes that the left has been taken over by the upscale advocates of identity politics. He thinks this can be changed... I don't. Hillary was brutally clear in her rigid advocacy of identity politics and neoliberalism. Quote

“If we broke up the big banks tomorrow….would that end racism? Would that end sexism?”

Since the 2016 election the American left has actually double-down on identity politics. As one observer pointed out "there is a reason we here a lot more about LGBTQ+ issues than the minimum wage, because that's what Democrats really care about".
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Josh Reiner Apr 10, 2018

Of course, if I made the same comment as Rodrik I'd be banished from Brad Delong's blog comment section for millennia.
- Peter Schaeffer Apr 10, 2018
  
  Brad's comments section is Stalinist. You can use any words in the English language to praise the cosmopolitan elite. You can write substantive comments. You can write silly comments. As long as you stick to the party line, you are OK. Deviate from the party line (easy to do given how absurd Brad is), and you are toast. Brad was born too late to fill his natural role in life (Gulag guard). He is trying to make up for it.
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stephan Edwards Apr 10, 2018

At last someone admits Wallstreet owns both parties. What a surprise. Has the Left has neither good policies or a believable story. The so called Elites own both parties and like the Status Quo just fine, thank you. For all the sound bytes and solemn pronouncements any changes will be cosmetic not real.
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Marc Laventurier Apr 10, 2018

What’s been stopping the Left? Lumpenproletariat Lite®
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http://prosyn.org/v2sC214/zh;

什么在阻止左翼？

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