If you zoom out enough, I think what you see is this is the inevitable process a human society goes through when it becomes very wealthy and dominant. It’s really just the story of wealthy families amplified. Broadly speaking, the first generation makes it, the second generation spends it, the third generation blows it. In our case, we got risk-averse, fat, happy and utopian. I think this all works itself out in time, after a rough period. As long as we retain core American principles (not a given), we will emerge in good shape.
On the populist side of things, especially the populist right, I think it’s fair to ask for a specific policy agenda, but also it’s early. This is a very new energy, and it’s attracted many people with basically no experience in the policy realm. People will learn, and get better.
"I also think this non-woke, neoliberal, technocratic left - as represented by people like Matthew Yglesias - is the most likely source of substantive policy ideas for addressing some of the core issues facing our country. There simply aren’t enough people with serious policy chops on the right to engage on many of these issues at a detailed level.
The populist right has been more focused on political and philosophical questions like post-liberalism, the “regime,” nationalism, etc. and much less so on actually implementable policy solutions. How do we bring down health care costs? How do we modernize our energy system? How do we address income inequality and poor social mobility? These aren’t questions with trivial answers."
AMEN TO THIS.
The populist Right cares about grievances, just like the identity politics Left does.
The intellectual New Right hasn't yet figured out its philosophy of governance. In fact, it hasn't figured out whether it's even interested in a philosophy of governance. (The American Right doesn't have a long history of such interest, as it has simply wanted to "starve the beast." Trump's only notable legislative accomplishment was a neoliberal tax cut that could have been passed by Ronald Reagan.)
Is the New Right's philosophy of governance anything more than an ad hoc approach of helping friends and hurting enemies? There's lots of guidance for a potential New Right philosophy of governance from other countries. But are American conservatives willing to look to other countries?
Are "capitalism" or "socialism" meaningful terms anymore (if they ever were)? What I get from "What Went Wrong with Capitalism" is that government control grew on basically every margin. And apparently, the fact that the city of San Francisco transfers more taxpayer money to private entities than the city of Houston has in its entire budget makes it one of the least socialist governments?
Thankfully, we don't have to even try to salvage terms like "neoliberal" which never had any meaning at all beyond "vague thing I don't like." The NYT article mentioned is simply bonkers and feels like a parody of something a regime outlet might publish.
>Are "capitalism" or "socialism" meaningful terms anymore (if they ever were)?
Their meaning is certainly confused these days, but people still use them. It's good to ask questions about what exactly they mean.
The command economy is dead as a concept. As is the Communist New Man. There are no longer any serious people who believe that there is an alternative to an economy that is directed primarily by capital, or that if you take capital out of the system, a utopia will result, and that people themselves will become better and selfless.
But a lot of educated people like to criticize "capitalism" anyway. I think they mostly mean that we need more regulations and more welfare spending. Or they're criticizing just to criticize. Some of my childhood friends have gotten this way, and it's very annoying.
If you zoom out enough, I think what you see is this is the inevitable process a human society goes through when it becomes very wealthy and dominant. It’s really just the story of wealthy families amplified. Broadly speaking, the first generation makes it, the second generation spends it, the third generation blows it. In our case, we got risk-averse, fat, happy and utopian. I think this all works itself out in time, after a rough period. As long as we retain core American principles (not a given), we will emerge in good shape.
On the populist side of things, especially the populist right, I think it’s fair to ask for a specific policy agenda, but also it’s early. This is a very new energy, and it’s attracted many people with basically no experience in the policy realm. People will learn, and get better.
"I also think this non-woke, neoliberal, technocratic left - as represented by people like Matthew Yglesias - is the most likely source of substantive policy ideas for addressing some of the core issues facing our country. There simply aren’t enough people with serious policy chops on the right to engage on many of these issues at a detailed level.
The populist right has been more focused on political and philosophical questions like post-liberalism, the “regime,” nationalism, etc. and much less so on actually implementable policy solutions. How do we bring down health care costs? How do we modernize our energy system? How do we address income inequality and poor social mobility? These aren’t questions with trivial answers."
AMEN TO THIS.
The populist Right cares about grievances, just like the identity politics Left does.
The intellectual New Right hasn't yet figured out its philosophy of governance. In fact, it hasn't figured out whether it's even interested in a philosophy of governance. (The American Right doesn't have a long history of such interest, as it has simply wanted to "starve the beast." Trump's only notable legislative accomplishment was a neoliberal tax cut that could have been passed by Ronald Reagan.)
Is the New Right's philosophy of governance anything more than an ad hoc approach of helping friends and hurting enemies? There's lots of guidance for a potential New Right philosophy of governance from other countries. But are American conservatives willing to look to other countries?
Are "capitalism" or "socialism" meaningful terms anymore (if they ever were)? What I get from "What Went Wrong with Capitalism" is that government control grew on basically every margin. And apparently, the fact that the city of San Francisco transfers more taxpayer money to private entities than the city of Houston has in its entire budget makes it one of the least socialist governments?
Thankfully, we don't have to even try to salvage terms like "neoliberal" which never had any meaning at all beyond "vague thing I don't like." The NYT article mentioned is simply bonkers and feels like a parody of something a regime outlet might publish.
>Are "capitalism" or "socialism" meaningful terms anymore (if they ever were)?
Their meaning is certainly confused these days, but people still use them. It's good to ask questions about what exactly they mean.
The command economy is dead as a concept. As is the Communist New Man. There are no longer any serious people who believe that there is an alternative to an economy that is directed primarily by capital, or that if you take capital out of the system, a utopia will result, and that people themselves will become better and selfless.
But a lot of educated people like to criticize "capitalism" anyway. I think they mostly mean that we need more regulations and more welfare spending. Or they're criticizing just to criticize. Some of my childhood friends have gotten this way, and it's very annoying.