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Recent surveys show that over 80% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Increasing percentages of Americans identify themselves as democrats. They are "ready to jump," [like what a frog in water being heated actually does].
In order to convince them to jump, we need to provide them with the coherent, persuasive, intellectual underpinnings of why the Right Wing has failed, and why they should embrace a new New Deal.
There is an absolutely compelling case to be made, but too often among the blogosphere, that case seems to be marginalized, and drowned out by the shouts of "The Sky is Falling!" The case to be made isn't Armageddon. It is Inequality of Economic Opportunity, that has already, slowly but inexoribly, eaten into the standard of living of average Americans.
Now, it could very well be that disaster -- of devastating inflation or deep recession -- is around the corner, but is that what people have to be persuaded of in order to vote for a Democratic economic agenda? Relying on the idea that an economic Apocalypse is imminent makes us look like tin-hatters every time cataclysm doesn't show up on average Americans' front doorstep. And it isn't the case we need to make.
The progressive economic case is straightforward: the 28 years since Ronald Reagan's election have resulted in the middle class suffering, and suffering more acutely as time has gone on. Reagan used the hoary old line that "a rising tide lifts all boats" but we have seen in the generation since, that it just isn't so. The rich got bigger and more ornate yachts, while everybody else had to make do with the same old dinghy, a dinghy ever more difficult to maintain. And every year, about 10% of those dinghies get a hole, spring a leak and sink.
The case to be made isn't Armageddon. It is Inequality of Economic Opportunity: the corporations and the wealthy have gotten the benefits, and the average American has taken on the risk and picked up the bill.
The case is compelling. The percentage of wealth concentrated on big corporations and financial institutions compared with labor is at a high not seen since the 1920s:
It's not a case of the average American's wealth growing, just more slowly than that of the wealthy. Rather, the middle class hasn't made any economic progress at all in the last 10 years, and is about to see their wealth decline again in this recession. Measured by quintiles, the lowest 20% has actually lost ground since the GOP came to power.
This is a permanent loss in middle class earning power.
To try to keep up, Americans have been taking on
Meanwhile pension plans have evaporated. And while CEOs get golden parachutes even for poor performance, if the company files for bankruptcy, it can
suspend benefits or terminate that pension plan. Indeed, the average American now lives in a society where each year about 1 in 10 households faces a 50% or more loss of income. But when large financial institutions get in trouble, savers are punished in order to bail them out with low interest rates, if they aren't bailed out directly.
The problem isn't Armageddon, it is inequality. Specifically, there is one set of rules for the Lords of Finance, and another set for the peon on Main Street. Finance is "too big to fail". The little guy or gal gets crushed, and has to deal with an onerous new Bankruptcy Law to boot. So profound is this inequality of economic opportunity that there is less social mobility now in America than there is in Europe.
This is an absolutely stunning, devastating indictment of GOP economic policies. After 28 years, the statistics and the graphs can no longer be ignored. The historical record has been made. They have worked to engorge those already wealthy, while leaving all the risk on the backs of the middle and working classes. Profit has been privatized and risk left to the public, again and again and again.
It is neither necessary nor particularly productive to base the appeal of progressive economic solutions on the idea that the four horsemen of the economic Apocalypse -- insolvency due to national debt, or hyper-inflation, or peak oil, or Great Depression 2 -- are just around the corner. Telling the truth about the slow, decades long assault on average Americans will suffice.
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Postscript: Six years later, my beliefs are exactly the same. What is different is that the centrality of inequality - and by that I mean in particular inequality of opportunity, and unequal application of the law - has become accepted far and wide in the progressive econoblogosphere, by such people as
Profs. Brad DeLong,
Dean Baker,
Mark Thoma,
Robert Reich and
Prof. Paul Krugman. Even
Larry Summers has recognized that inequality is "profoundly corrosive." And of course
President Obama recently described inequality the "defining challenge" facing America.
For reasons many of you already know, I detest even moreso than before those Pied Pipers of Doom who squeal with glee any time they can seize upon some "Sky is Falling" meme. The case to be made is not Armageddon. It is that America is failing as a land of equal opportunity.
