I'll like 3 week mini classes to read this article carefully. I'll be opening some new material on ideology - I'll try to beyond what I normally do in class - and this uses a lot of the terms we will try to come to terms with. Aside from the broad - and unhelpful - terms liberal and conservative, these include progressive, neoliberalism, economic populism, moderate conservative and a few others.
Bruce Bartlett is one of my favorite writers - so I'm prejudiced - but here he wonders whether Pope Francis' recent statements on inequities in society means that progressive economics has a spokesman it has lacked for many years. He also provides a good look at the recent ideological history - at least in terms of the economy - in the US:
Bruce Bartlett is one of my favorite writers - so I'm prejudiced - but here he wonders whether Pope Francis' recent statements on inequities in society means that progressive economics has a spokesman it has lacked for many years. He also provides a good look at the recent ideological history - at least in terms of the economy - in the US:
Until the 1970s, the economics profession was largely dominated by progressives. Almost all economists supported the idea that government spending on public works was the best policy in an economic recession, that tax policy ought to equalize incomes and reduce inequality, and that the Federal Reserve should use monetary policy to reduce unemployment. -
But in the inflationary 1970s, these progressive ideas came under fierce attack from economists associated with supply-side economics, the Chicago School and others on the right who argued that government fine-tuning made recessions worse, that tax policy should eschew redistribution and concentrate only on increasing growth, and that the Fed should stick to maintaining price stability and ignore unemployment in the conduct of monetary policy.
Eventually, this conservative view was even adopted by Democrats, who called it neoliberalism. So widespread is the neoliberal view today that even those who claim to be on the political left, such as the group Third Way, attack “economic populism” and demand cuts in Social Security benefits.
One reason for the success of neoliberalism is that progressive economic thought has lacked an effective and articulate spokesman. Bill Clinton famously declared that the era of big government was over and worked with Republicans to abolish the entitlement to welfare and slash the capital gains tax. He also reappointed Republican Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve. On balance, Clinton governed as an Eisenhower Republican.
Barack Obama is little better. Objective analysts have known for years that he has governed as a moderate conservative who has consistently rejected progressive demands to reduce unemployment, who adopted a health reform designed by Republicans and conservatives, and reappointed Republican Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Fed. Like Clinton, he has pursued free trade and done nothing to halt the outsourcing of American jobs to China.
Those on the left know that Clinton and Obama were not progressive presidents, but were forced to circle the wagons around them because the alternative of right-wing Republican control was worse. And conservative attacks on Clinton and Obama for being radical socialists fooled some progressives into thinking they were men of the left rather than, as was actually the case, moderate conservatives.
As a consequence, true progressivism has withered almost to the point of death, with most political debate in the U.S. taking place between moderate conservatives and those on the far right. In fact, many people have simply forgotten what a true progressive even sounds like.
Into this policy vacuum, Pope Francis has breathed new life into the progressive tradition.
