The message to Democrats is clear: you must dump neoliberal economics

[Passages]

The party must return to its progressive roots. A new economy is needed with new rules and new roles


As the shock of Donald Trump’s victory sinks in, pundits and politicians are mulling what it means for the future of the US and global politics. Understanding why such a divisive, unqualified figure won again is crucial for the Democrats. Did they go too far left and lose the moderate Americans who make up a majority? Or did centrist neoliberalism – pursued by Democratic presidents since Bill Clinton – fail to deliver, thus creating a demand for change?

To me, the answer is clear: 40 years of neoliberalism have left the US with unprecedented inequality, stagnation in the middle of the income spectrum (and worse for those below), and declining average life expectancy (highlighted by mounting “deaths of despair”). The American Dream is being killed, and although President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris distanced themselves from neoliberalism with their embrace of industrial policies, as representatives of the mainstream establishment, they remained associated with its legacy.

The economics of the moment mattered, but monthly employment and inflation indicators need to be understood in a broader historical context. As the Biden administration stressed on the eve of the election, the economy looks strong, especially compared with others in the G7. But this wasn’t good enough. Americans haven’t forgotten that the Democrats let loose the financial sector (Clinton), then bailed out the banks while homeowners and workers who lost their jobs in the Great Recession carried the cost (Barack Obama). Moreover, it was Clinton who unleashed globalisation, tacitly believing in a trickle-down economics that would ultimately benefit everyone. The only real difference between Democrats and Republicans on this score is that Democrats claimed to feel the pain of those who were losing out.

The tragedy is that Americans seem to have voted for mere disruption more than anything else. Stalked by economic precarity and the spectre of downward social mobility, tens of millions of Americans voted for Trump as a way of “sticking it to the establishment”, and because many seem to believe that he has their back.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/28/the-message-to-democrats-is-clear-you-must-dump-neoliberal-economics

It's a good idea to listen to the smartest and most ethical guy in the room.

Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (/ˈstɪɡlɪts/; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist,[2] a public policy analyst, political activist, and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001)[3] and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979).[4] He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He is also a former member and chairman of the US Council of Economic Advisers.[5][6] He is known for his support for the Georgist public finance theory[7][8][9] and for his critical view of the management of globalization, of laissez-faire economists (whom he calls "free-market fundamentalists", and of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz

Joseph Stiglitz: Bitcoin ought to be outlawed
Nov 30, 2017
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/11/joseph-stiglitz-bitcoin-ought-to-be-outlawed/

[OrlandoDem2]

1. Every single effing time we do try to go back to FDR and LBJ the GOP screams SOCIALISM!

We gotta be 2 steps ahead of that!!

[Keepthesoulalive]

2. You had better elect more Democrats

Because we are always close in elections and they block anything that won’t serve their masters.
Stop crapping on dems and go after the real culprits.

[Passages]

4. You mean like Sinema and Manchin, who gutted BBB?

Stiglitz isn't crapping on anyone but he is speaking from a knowledge base I hope is embraced by more Democrats.

[Keepthesoulalive]

7. I said democrats

There are always turncoats. But if you elect enough democrats they will be irrelevant.
Also we would control the senate. Democrats didn’t make this mess republicans did . Think Mitch McConnell and the Supreme Court. If we put the blame where it belongs maybe we could stop with the circular firing squad.

[Passages]

8. Leadership at the top needs to change course or you would not see OPs like this one from

such an authority figure. There is no question we need more Democrats just not any Democrat.

One example:

The bad news is that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has done precisely what many long feared he would: While rhetorically supporting two bipartisan antitrust bills targeting Big Tech for months, he effectively killed the effort by never bringing the legislative package for a vote on the Senate floor in the final days of the congressional term.

That much was clear this week, when House and Senate leaders introduced a $1.7 trillion end-of-the-year spending package that includes a suite of antitrust bills, but not the two that took direct aim at the tech behemoths: the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) and the Open App Markets Act (OAMA). The exclusion amounted to a betrayal in the eyes of antitrust advocates; Schumer had been promising his colleagues a vote on those bills since May. But not only did the New York Democrat block widely supported measures intended to rein in the likes of Google and Amazon, he actually dropped a separate provision that staffers and activists argue was to protect Google from a 2020 Texas lawsuit.
https://time.com/6243256/schumer-kills-antitrust-big-tech-bills/

Frontline Democrats Won With Progressive Populist Messages
Longtime Democratic moderates who attacked big business and monopolies outpaced Harris in swing districts.

by Luke Goldstein November 22, 2024

More often than not, efforts to fight corporate power come from the left flank of the Democratic Party, and have ever since progressives spawned the regulatory state in the early 20th century and the New Deal took on Wall Street. For the past several decades, by contrast, the party’s centrists have generally been more accommodating toward free-market solutions.
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-11-22-frontline-democrats-won-with-progressive-populist-messages/

[Keepthesoulalive]

10. Then go run for office

The Supreme Court said money is free speech. It takes a lot of money to run for office and you eat a lot of nasty dinners and make some choices that are odious . If you want change liberals and progressives have to compromise and vote for the candidate that is better for the country every election. They did not turn out for this election and we will all feel it. There is no perfect candidate
Stop pissing on democrats and get on the grassroots train.

[Passages]

11. Stiglitz is not pissing on anyone.

Unfortunately, that is how some interpret his message.

[Keepthesoulalive]

12. I don't care who is saying it.

Go attack the republicans they are the problem. They have not done one thing to move this country forward. We have a convicted felon and traitor as president elect and the republicans don’t have a problem with that.
Name 1 thing republicans have done for this country, I keep asking I have yet to get a response.
I want to see republicans should do as opposed to democrats should do.

[Passages]

13. You just stated that a convicted felon won over our candidate and yet we should ignore

Stiglitz. You don't care who is saying it, and losing will possibly continue as a result of it.

No one is saying Republicans do anything but loot, so perhaps Harris saying a Republican would be part of her cabinet was not a great strategy, among other issues.

[Keepthesoulalive]

14. I don't care about this man.

I don’t care about Elon musk, Zach Snyder, or any of the talking heads on tv. I care about people who go into war zones to feed people, I care about people who marched for civil rights and people who are fighting back against Putin. Has this man gone to the capitol to protest ,has he raised money for candidates.what has he done other than sit behind a computer and pontificate. Get back to me with his plan of action.

[Passages]

15. Are you serious? Has he gone to protest?

Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (/ˈstɪɡlɪts/; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist,[2] a public policy analyst, political activist, and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001)[3] and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979).[4] He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He is also a former member and chairman of the US Council of Economic Advisers.[5][6] He is known for his support for the Georgist public finance theory[7][8][9] and for his critical view of the management of globalization, of laissez-faire economists (whom he calls "free-market fundamentalists", and of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz

Joseph Stiglitz: Bitcoin ought to be outlawed
Nov 30, 2017
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/11/joseph-stiglitz-bitcoin-ought-to-be-outlawed/


Have a good day.

[Keepthesoulalive]

16. Sounds like a think tank sort of guy.

Bitcoin is tulips. Good day to you also.

[WSHazel]

3. These attacks on "neoliberalism"

These attacks on "neoliberalism" (a term which seems to have a new definition in every column I read) are actually a full-throated endorsement of Trumponomics. Trump and his coterie of fascists like Thiel and Vance, believe that an unelected elite should control the economy, and by extension, get disproportionate shares of our nation's wealth. They fear markets, because in a truly free market, many of them would lose their grip on wealth and power.

So they attack markets by branding liberalism as something it isn't, then inviting both sides of the political spectrum to attack it, with the goal of ending free market economies and handing power over to the self-appointed elite. I am very disappointed that Stiglitz is playing along with this.

[Passages]

5. Nonsensical.

The Dem establishment has well respected Stiglitz, they need to listen to him more closely now since they lost twice to a demagogue.

[Fiendish Thingy]

9. You don't know what you are talking about

Neoliberalism is an economic theory, which is not liberal in the left-right sense. Nobody is “changing the definition” especially Stiglitz.

Trump and Biden are the first two presidents in over 40 years to move away from neoliberal policies.

Trump of course, went for a shoot from the hip, make-it-up-as-you-go protectionism.

Biden, on the other hand, tried to apply New Deal Keynesian policies, passing the IRA and infrastructure bills, strengthening unions, and appointing Lina Khan to the FTC and unleashing aggressive anti-trust actions.

The hands off, free market deregulation of neoliberal economics has accelerated income inequality and the wealth gap in the US and globally, and led to the GFC of 2008, the rise of crypto, the scapegoating of immigrants and liberal democratic principles.

It’s time for it to die.

[WSHazel]

19. Defining anything bad as "neoliberal" is straight out of 1984

There is nothing in neoliberalism about crypto or immigration, and many neoliberal economists are very much humanists, but believe free markets are critical to the success of the economy. You are the one adding “unregulated” to their positions.

Attacks on liberalism, or neoliberalism, are straight out of the Vance/Thiel/Patrick Deneen playbook of free markets are bad, economic nationalism is good.

[Fiendish Thingy]

20. As I said, neoliberal economics accelerated income inequality

As well as wealth concentration among the very few.

When shareholder return takes precedence over the real impact on the lives of actual humans (corporations are not people, my friend), that’s a recipe for suffering, and gives populist demagogues the opportunity to seize power and establish authoritarian rule.

If you support neoliberal economics, just say so.

I do not - I prefer Keynesian economics, which, along with strong unions, created and protected the middle class.

[lees1975]

6. We're at that point now where, if the media is saying something, it can't be true.

They are the ones who created this mess in the first place. They gave Trump a 24-7 political campaign in a package every single day since he left the White House. They're about money and ratings, he's about money and ratings, a marriage made in heaven. They got what they wanted, and now they're pushing the "we were right all the time" narrative.

This is an even bigger crock of baloney.

As always, Democrats lost control of the narrative. And now the mainstream media is going to tell us what we need to do?

Come on, people, get real.

[Martin Eden]

17. I would bet most Trump voters have no clue what "neoliberalism" means

Just as they have no clue that Trump's policies will INCREASE inflation, gut government services they may need, and transfer more wealth to the top.

The consequences of "laissez-faire" economics have indeed made the American Dream less accessible to a wider swath of the American electorate, but far more Republicans in Congress are on board with that than Democrats.

Are Trump voters aware that Republicans oppose unions, raising the minimum wage, and government assistance with health care costs while Democrats push for those policies?

Trump voters are clueless that HIS policies are comfort the rich on steriods.

They think they were better off four years ago under Trump when his mishandling of COVID increased the US death toll by hundreds of thousands and the economy was tanking, and they are blind to the accomplishments of the Biden administration which made the US economy the envy of the world.

To put it plainly, Trump voters believed false narratives promoted by Fox News, the Sinclair media empire, and social media lies that spread like wildfire via algorithims and the gullibility of an electorate whose ignorance renders them ripe for such manipulation.

When tens of millions of voters can be persuaded that Donald Trump is a truth teller who has their backs, the American experiment in democracy is gravely imperiled regardless of what Democrats do or say.

[Passages]

18. I agree a percentage of Americans in general could not explain

neoliberalism, including here on this website.

The most important aspect, IMO, is that they have lived it. If a politician talks to them about those policies, how they create inequality, and how their prospects will not be improved due to our border policy, they will begin to not blame their neighbor for their economic hardships.

I reject that Democrats can do nothing to change their minds. I reject that we have done everything right and people are just racist and misogynists and ultimately too stupid to know how good they have it under Biden. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and Obama won twice by large margins. Racism and misogyny have not been eradicated and yet many reject any other answer for her loss.

If we do not set a consistent policy path which was very good under Biden and undermined by Manchin and Sinema with BBB we will continue to lose. Biden stated that policy must be passed so Americans could believe in the government again. He stated this would keep the wolf at the door, Trump/the Authoritarian, out.

There were other factors to the Harris loss, as there always are, and the post-mortem has not been exhausted yet. Biden's performance at the debate was a shock to millions of Americans, how long it took for Harris to take the reigns was painful and left her 15 weeks. There was no primary as Pelosi stated recently, and it is obvious now the leadership worried if Harris could win. Perfect storms are created by many elements.


Harris had this great policy where medical debt would be absorbed for many Americans. Instead of having town halls where you invite these voters plagued by this debt through no fault of their own,...where they can connect with her and she with them. Where Harris can sell the policy AND add goodwill. Instead, she does a town hall with Oprah. Whoever ran her campaign should never be employed again, you have to be in deep denial to accept her campaign as fault-free.

Sending Bill Clinton to Michigan? Really? Nafta decimated the state. Who the hell organized this as a good idea?
https://www.citizen.org/article/michigan-job-loss-during-the-nafta-wto-period/

Joseph Stiglitz has many answers for the economy, America needs leadership to follow suit, and the voters will stop rolling the dice on a demagogue.

SNIP
History proves that dictatorships do not grow out of strong and successful governments but out of weak and helpless governments. If by democratic methods people get a government strong enough to protect them from fear and starvation, their democracy succeeds, but if they do not, they grow impatient. Therefore, the only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/fireside-chat-on-the-recession/

[Martin Eden]

21. Was Build Back Better typical of neoliberalism?

And how many Republican senators supported it?

And sure, neoliberalism can be laid somewhat at the feet of Bill Clinton (approx 30 years ago) but as I recall most of the opposition to financial deregulation came from Democrats. My recollection is a little more fuzzy on global trade agreements, but I suspect more support from Republicans.

In other words, why do Democrats get most of the blame for a pendulum shift which began in earnest during the two terms of Ronald Reagan?

Of course, that's no excuse for Democrats going along with it. However, I don't think that accurately characterizes BBB and the policies articulated by Kamala Harris -- especially compared to the "Ersatz capitalism" of her opponent.

And sure, the Harris campaign could have been run better -- but there were severe handicaps from the start, beginning with Democratic disarry after Biden's disastrous debate. Couple that with the fact that Kamala Harris was unpopular nationally as VP; did not earn the presidential nomination by winning a primary battle; and had just over 3 months to change perceptions -- I don't think messaging, policy proposals, or accurate blame for the effects of neoliberalism decided the outcome. Racism and misogyny were factors, though perhaps not decisive.

By all means, the Democratic Party needs an honest and accurate post-mortem followed by coherent and coordinated plans moving forward.

But IMO the biggest obstacle to overcome is the overwhelmig stream of disinformation which convinced a slim majority of the electorate to vote for a convicted felon and pathological liar who incited a violent assault on our nation's Capitol.

To any reasonably well informed citizen of normal intelligence, Donald Trump is egregiously unfit both mentally and morally for any elective office, let alone president of the United States. It should also be obvios that what he has promised will hurt the pocketbooks of the people who voted for him -- as well as posing a grave threat to our Constitutional rule of law.

God help us if a majority of his voters understood all that, yet chose economic calamity and authoritarianism anyway. For we are doomed, no matter what the Democratic Party does.

Or maybe they were conned into believing a gish gallop of lies and false narratives. In other words, mostly clueless.

In that case, they are in store for a world of hurt they didn't expect -- and therein lies an opportunity for the Democratic Party to ride to the rescue.

We better be pepared, or this may be our last chance.

[Passages]

22. No, BBB was not representative of neoliberalism.

It was strong enough before it was gutted by two corrupt politicians to give Americans what Biden referred to as confidence in our government as an institution.

Harris spent more time on democracy is at stake than what policies will change and kept her distance from Lina Khan who was Biden's shining example of how we will protect working Americans. Biden never bragged enough if at all about what that dept was doing. I waited 2 years for them to educate the public, that is their job, in part...getting your message out. If you have to, have your version of a fireside chat. Where was the policy for climate change, Gen Z believes they will be screwed because no one in the leadership wants to back the Green New Deal, but all scientists are behind.

Democrats must decide with the old guard removed, hopefully, how they will define American policy and not rely on a sick demented demagogue to run against to look more appealing.