We Are Complicit In Picking The Elites Who Fail Us So Miserably

Couched in a non-controversial endorsement of Illinois progressive, George Gollin, Alan Grayson touched on a painful-- and dangerous-- trend regarding the quality of American political candidates. "One of the dirty little secrets of Congress," he wrote, "is that many of us legislate in areas in which we are utterly bereft of knowledge. If ignorance is bliss, then some of our Members must be deliriously happy."

[T]o the extent that Members of Congress know any stuff at all, it’s always the same stuff. According to Roll Call, out of the 435 Members of the House, we have 187 businessmen, 156 lawyers, and 77 educators. Do the math. That leaves 15 Members.



For four years, I worked as an economist. As far as I know, I’m the only Member of Congress who can make that claim. Roll Call did not uncover anyone else. And believe me, whenever I start to talk economics in a Congressional hearing, the eyes glaze over. Quickly.



But don’t worry. Whenever we need an expert opinion on something, we can turn to the three former talk radio hosts in the House. (It was four, until one got caught inhaling cocaine.) Or perhaps we can benefit from the expertise of the former professional football player-- whenever it’s third and nine on the Floor of the House.

America is facing significant challenges, even existential challenges-- that will either be solved or push our beloved nation down the path of decline and ruin. The quality of the candidates we're being offered for Congress-- look no further than the garbage the Democrats and Republicans just proferred in FL-13-- does not inspire confidence. It's easy to deride people who don't vote. It's just as easy for them to deride people who do vote. Voting for the lesser of two evils, means you are still voting for evil. Voting for one slightly less clueless idiot instead of a slightly more clueless idiot, still leaves you voting for a clueless idiot. Party leaders in DC thrive on clueless idiots; it's how they gain and maintain power Inside-the-Beltway. That's why the two political parties serve up such pathetic candidates. And that's why grassroots primary challenges are the most important elections we can participate in. Tuesday there's one in IL-13, where a brilliant grassroots progressive is contesting the party bosses' selection of a dull, mediocre hack. The three biggest newspapers in the district have all warned against the dull, mediocre hack and have endorsed the brilliant grassroots progressive. But the party machine in Illinois is powerful and desperate to elect another zombie. Zombies won't solve any problems for America. And neither will the corrupt power mongers who back them. Last weekend, David Sainsbury, author and former U.K. Minister of Science and Innovation, penned an article for Nation of Change about how our elites have utterly failed us in the realm of ideas. And what worries Sainsbury, himself a member of the House of Lords and far from a progressive, let alone a radical, is the failure of ideas on the left. His perspective would be called a Third Way or New Dem approach here in the U.S. It's inherent conservatism makes it essentially flawed-- but still worth looking at.

The 2008 financial crash revealed major flaws in the neoliberal view of capitalism, and an objective view of the last 35 years shows that the neoliberal model has not performed well relative to the previous 30 years in terms of economic growth, financial stability, and social justice. But a credible progressive alternative has yet to take shape.

What should be the main outlines of such an alternative? First, a progressive political economy must be based on a firm belief in capitalism-- that is, on an economic system in which most of the assets are privately owned, and markets largely guide production and distribute income.

But it must also incorporate three defining progressive beliefs: the crucial role of institutions; the need for state involvement in their design in order to resolve conflicting interests and provide public goods; and social justice, defined as fairness, as an important measure of a country’s economic performance.

It was a great mistake of neoclassical economists not to see that capitalism is a socioeconomic system, and that institutions are an essential part of it. The recent financial crisis was made far worse by profound institutional failures, such as the high level of leverage that banks were permitted to have.

Empirical research has shown that four sets of institutions have a major impact on the performance of firms and, therefore, on a country’s economic growth. These include the institutions underpinning its financial and labor markets, its corporate-governance arrangements, its education and training system, and its national system of innovation (the network of public and private institutions that initiate and diffuse new technologies).

The second defining belief of progressive thinking is that institutions do not evolve spontaneously, as neoliberals believe. The state must be involved in their design and reform. In the case of institutions underpinning labor and financial markets, as well as corporate governance, the state must mediate conflicting interests. Likewise, a country’s education and training system and its national system of innovation are largely public goods, which have to be provided by the state.

It should be clear that the role for the state that I have been describing is an enabling or market-supporting one. It is not the command-and-control role promoted by traditional socialists or the minimalist role beloved by neoliberals.

The third defining belief of progressive thinking rejects the neoliberal view that a country’s economic performance should be assessed solely in terms of GDP growth and freedom. If one is concerned with a society’s wellbeing, it is not possible to argue that a rich country in which the top 1% hold most of the wealth is performing better than a slightly less wealthy country in which prosperity is more widely shared.

Moreover, fairness is a better measure of social justice than equality. This is because it is difficult to devise practical and effective policies to achieve equality in a market economy. Moreover, there is a real tradeoff between equality and economic growth, and egalitarianism is not a popular policy even for many low-income people. In my experience, trade unions are much more interested in wage differentials than in a simple policy of equal pay for all.

These are the core principles that I believe a new progressive political economy should embrace. I also believe that Western countries that do not adopt this framework, and instead cling to a neoliberal political economy, will find it increasingly difficult to innovate and grow.

In the new global economy, which is awash with cheap labor, Western economies will not be able to compete in a “race to the bottom,” with firms seeking ever-cheaper labor, land, and capital, and governments seeking to attract them by deregulating and shrinking social benefits.

The only way Western economies will be able to compete and improve their standard of living is by seeing themselves as being involved in a race to the top. That is, firms must improve their value added through innovation in existing industries, and by developing the capability to compete in new and more sophisticated industries, where value added is generally higher.

Companies will be able to do this only if governments abandon the belief that they have no role to play in the economy. In fact, the state has a key role to play in providing the conditions that enable dynamic companies to innovate and grow.

In primaries from CA-33, where we have a choice between sterling progressive thinkers like Marianne Williamson and Ted Lieu on the one hand, and dull, more-of-the-same, clueless hacks like Wendy Greuel on the other, to IL-13 where brilliant progressive George Gollin is up against two milquetoast conservatives, Republican Rodney Davis and Democrat Ann Callis, we have serious choices to make. If we keep electing dumb, mediocre candidates to Congress, we are-- essentially, doomed to a kind of modern-day serfdom in which plutocrats exercise ultimate power over the masses of effectively disenfranchised workers.

SUNDAY CLASSICS SCHEDULE NOTE FROM KEN

I thought today's Don Carlos post, looking at the Act IV confrontation between King Philip and the queen, Elisabeth, would be an easy one. Alas, no. The post will follow at 5pm ET/2pm PT.

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