I just want to mention one column by Brooks. I gather you read the Times sometimes, but are not a fan and might have missed this one: "The Establishment Lives!" (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/opinion/23brooks.html)
I mention it because he has an interesting take on the ideological implications of this crisis, speaking of a new regime that is neither liberal nor truly libertarian:
So we have arrived at one of those moments. The global financial turmoil has pulled nearly everybody out of their normal ideological categories. The pressure of reality has compelled new thinking about the relationship between government and the economy. And lo and behold, a new center and a new establishment is emerging.
...
The government will be much more active in economic management (pleasing a certain sort of establishment Democrat). Government activism will provide support to corporations, banks and business and will be used to shore up the stable conditions they need to thrive (pleasing a certain sort of establishment Republican). Tax revenues from business activities will pay for progressive but business-friendly causes — investments in green technology, health care reform, infrastructure spending, education reform and scientific research.
If you wanted to devise a name for this approach, you might pick the phrase economist Arnold Kling has used: Progressive Corporatism. We’re not entering a phase in which government stands back and lets the chips fall. We’re not entering an era when the government pounds the powerful on behalf of the people. We’re entering an era of the educated establishment, in which government acts to create a stable — and often oligarchic — framework for capitalist endeavor.
After a liberal era and then a conservative era, we’re getting a glimpse of what comes next.
I don't think that's a happy picture for either of us, but it seems to be where we are at - beyond individualism, but certainly not communistic.
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Date: 2008-09-24 03:08 pm (UTC)From:I mention it because he has an interesting take on the ideological implications of this crisis, speaking of a new regime that is neither liberal nor truly libertarian:
So we have arrived at one of those moments. The global financial turmoil has pulled nearly everybody out of their normal ideological categories. The pressure of reality has compelled new thinking about the relationship between government and the economy. And lo and behold, a new center and a new establishment is emerging.
...
The government will be much more active in economic management (pleasing a certain sort of establishment Democrat). Government activism will provide support to corporations, banks and business and will be used to shore up the stable conditions they need to thrive (pleasing a certain sort of establishment Republican). Tax revenues from business activities will pay for progressive but business-friendly causes — investments in green technology, health care reform, infrastructure spending, education reform and scientific research.
If you wanted to devise a name for this approach, you might pick the phrase economist Arnold Kling has used: Progressive Corporatism. We’re not entering a phase in which government stands back and lets the chips fall. We’re not entering an era when the government pounds the powerful on behalf of the people. We’re entering an era of the educated establishment, in which government acts to create a stable — and often oligarchic — framework for capitalist endeavor.
After a liberal era and then a conservative era, we’re getting a glimpse of what comes next.
I don't think that's a happy picture for either of us, but it seems to be where we are at - beyond individualism, but certainly not communistic.