The economy’s strength and stability — defying many of the most optimistic predictions — represents a remarkable development after seemingly endless crises
As 2023 winds to a close, Powell and his colleagues are far from declaring victory on inflation. They routinely caution that their actions could be thwarted by any number of threats, from war in the Middle East to China’s economic slowdown. Americans are upset about high costs for rent, groceries and other basics, which aren’t going back to pre-pandemic levels. The White House, too, is quick to emphasize that much work remains.
Yet the economy is ending the year in a remarkably better position than almost anyone on Wall Street or in mainstream economics predicted, having bested just about all expectations time and again. Inflation has dropped to 3.1 percent, from a peak of 9.1. The unemployment rate is at a hot 3.7 percent, and the economy grew at a healthy clip in the most recent quarter. The Fed is probably finished hiking interest rates and is eyeing cuts next year. Financial markets are at or near all-time highs, and the S&P 500 could hit a new record this week, too.
That happened in 1929. Don’t. Do. It. Again.
If that’s what it’s gonna take to get a green new deal then maybe we should. Without a crisis like that, at the current trajectory both parties seem set on selling out the planet for there corporate donors.
The party that does it will end up out of power for a generation because it’s such a bad idea. People can make that mistake out of ignorance, but won’t do it willingly
Are you saying the green new deal will be a bad idea and unpopular or triggering a depression to get it would be unpopular and a bad idea? Because the former I’d say is necessary to stop and help heal both climate change and income inequality, and if it’s anything like the first new deal would bring the party into power for a generation and set a new economic consensus. I think the latter is a bit extreme to accomplish it but idk any other way to get people to completely turn away from the current system and it’ll just be boiling the frog as the planet gets hotter, the rich get richer and the parties lose popularity but retain power.
No, I’m saying that crashing the economy on purpose will result in the party which does it being incredibly unpopular. You can’t do that and expect people to even listen to your next idea.
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I agree that initially people respond to crisis with conservatism and leaning on the current system, but that conservatism runs out though. If the system is able to solve the crisis, or at least show progress in solving it then it can be re-entrenched. If it can’t and proves utterly incapable of solving it, or even perpetuating it then people start to get radical. In 1929 and 1930 many people still believed laissez-faire could fix the depression but as conditions stayed the same or worsened people started to realize it’s flaws. By 1932 they were ready to give up on it and try anything to end it. 2007 was different as the neo liberal system was able to muster a response to the problem of speculative financial collapse in the form of financial bail outs which did bottom out the recession and start an upward trend.
The crisis I’d “root for”, as much as I can root for something that’d cause immediate suffering to many people, is one that neo liberalism can’t handle and therefore discredits it as a governing system. That crisis will come eventually, just as the depression ended laissez-faire and stagflation ended keynesianism and if that pattern holds up we’ll probably see a swing to the left this time on this metronome of economic consensus.
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I am not gambling anyone’s life. I have almost no power and can’t do anything to create or delay a crisis. The best I will do with my limited power is try and make it so the organization on the ground is ready to attempt that leftward shift if/when the crisis comes.
It could end in a fascist dystopia, but I think that’s less likely. At least in the u.s. where fascism never took off in its heyday before it had any stigma. If your talking about something with no evidence then that fascist speculation would be something, at least there’s precedent for a Keynesian new deal in the U.S. I do recognize it as a possibility though and that’s why I said probably, not with “absolute certainty”.
If the crisis doesn’t happen we may all die as well as neither party seems willing to deal with the climate catastrophe. That outcome seems way more certain to me, as shown by the repeated calls for action in the last 2 decades falling in deaf ears, than fascists taking over if a crisis does happen.
The way I see it is there’s a 90% chance of severe climate catastrophe on the current course, and a 30% chance there will be a fascist takeover if there’s a crisis, but a 50% chance for a green new deal. These are all completely speculative, but so is any guess on the future and I like to believe my guess has some backing in historical reality.
How would a collapse stop that? It would only hasten it. The rich will kill anyone who currently owns food productions and take it for themselves. Corporations will advertise food and shelter, and then use the extremely high number of people desperately trying to live as slave labor. Countries would fall only to be replaced by McDonalds and ConAgra.
And that’s without discussing the massacre of the working class. Not to mention too, the Inflation Reduction Act is an enormous amount of sustainability spending that’s spurred the entire West to do more. It may not be called the Green New Deal, but it sure as hell doesn’t fall far from it.
I think your overestimating how much people will tolerate deprivation before turning on the system. After a certain point people will reject the system, sometimes violently , and seek a new way of organizing society. It’s why the great depression didn’t turn into the corporate hellscape you envision even though companies were just as powerful at the end of the 1920s. Barring some sort of military coup you can’t subject a majority of the population to slavery and poverty without those people revolting.
The system relies on the at least tacit consent of the majority of the population, if you break that it becomes unstable and in that instability new ideas can come in. This is why most successful revolutions follow a crisis, one that discredits the current ruling order and allows something new to take it’s place.
It can be dangerous though, that new thing could be FDR or it could be Hitler, but it’s bound to happen eventually and our best hope now is to lay the groundwork so that when it does we get a leader ready to usher in a new green economy.
I think that’s different from a total collapse of the system. It’s moreso reforms, which I see as different.