The end of his story
By Carl
Back in 1992, all-around idiot Francis Fukuyama posited the end of history. His rationale was, now that the Soviet Union was dead and the then-nascent Chinese economy was tooling up to be globally competitive, the ideology of liberal democracy married to capitalism would take hold and the world would enter a glorious era of unicorns and bunnies.
Twenty years on, it seems more a warped Peter Pan nightmarish scenario. Even America has lost the thread of that ridiculous ideology that Fukuyama posited after twelve years of Reagan/Bush.
Now, no one is disputing that more of the world has tended towards democracy in the past twenty years. One only need look back over the past decade, even just the past year, to see dictatorship after dictatorship topple and fall, either from internal forces such as the Arab Spring or external forces as the Gulf Wars.
But Fukuyama's point, that democracy is somehow the best political system for a nation's economics, has been thrown into disrepute, even just in America. The past twelve years have seen 99% of the nation fall far behind corporatist economic growth and since corporations control the democracy... well, would anyone posit that having the lowest possible tax rates on corporations has done anything to improve either the democracy or the economy?
Enter Josh Barro of Bloomberg. His dad is Robert Barro, one of the signal figures in macroeconomic policy, a man so adept at the field that it's his text book students read. A man who is now working on trying to codify how religion fits into the macroeconomic picture. So he has a deep background in economics.
Josh is a former fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank -- the board of directors includes Bill Kristol -- so he's hardly a socialist. He seems to get it:
Read more »Back in 1992, all-around idiot Francis Fukuyama posited the end of history. His rationale was, now that the Soviet Union was dead and the then-nascent Chinese economy was tooling up to be globally competitive, the ideology of liberal democracy married to capitalism would take hold and the world would enter a glorious era of unicorns and bunnies.
Twenty years on, it seems more a warped Peter Pan nightmarish scenario. Even America has lost the thread of that ridiculous ideology that Fukuyama posited after twelve years of Reagan/Bush.
Now, no one is disputing that more of the world has tended towards democracy in the past twenty years. One only need look back over the past decade, even just the past year, to see dictatorship after dictatorship topple and fall, either from internal forces such as the Arab Spring or external forces as the Gulf Wars.
But Fukuyama's point, that democracy is somehow the best political system for a nation's economics, has been thrown into disrepute, even just in America. The past twelve years have seen 99% of the nation fall far behind corporatist economic growth and since corporations control the democracy... well, would anyone posit that having the lowest possible tax rates on corporations has done anything to improve either the democracy or the economy?
Enter Josh Barro of Bloomberg. His dad is Robert Barro, one of the signal figures in macroeconomic policy, a man so adept at the field that it's his text book students read. A man who is now working on trying to codify how religion fits into the macroeconomic picture. So he has a deep background in economics.
Josh is a former fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank -- the board of directors includes Bill Kristol -- so he's hardly a socialist. He seems to get it:
Conservatives do not have economic ideas that are good for the middle class. Since the 1970s, wage gains have decoupled from productivity gains and the median family has therefore reaped a disproportionately small share of the benefits of growth. Conservatives are left without anything to say about this problem.
What can they say about it? I have a few ideas, though I don't think conservatives are likely to like any of them too much.
Labels: conservatives, democracy, fiscal policy, Francis Fukuyama, middle class, redistribution of wealth, Republican Party, Republicans
posted by Carl at
9:39 AM
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