I find your analyses very powerful and I basically always agree with them to the extent that I understand them. I have long been guided in my own understanding of where we are and what’s needed by a much more, shall we say, straightforward analysis, which is attributed to FDR:
“If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.”
You focus in this post on something I think is absolutely vital and foundational to this moment in our history, which is that Neoliberalism has made it virtually impossible for millions of Americans to ‘make a living’ in America and this needs to change. And this addresses a part of what I believe is meant by that FDR quote above: If people know that, at the very least, they can enter the workforce and make a living wage, this will go a long way towards ‘bettering the lot’ of our citizens and make them far less vulnerable to the attractions of demagogues promising to better their lot.
However, I think that there’s more involved in addressing the threat of growing authoritarianism: it has to do with democracy moving forward as a ‘living force.’ To me, this involves much more than overcoming economic insecurity or transitioning back to stakeholder capitalism dedicated to universal economic viability. It has to do also with being civically viable. With having a sense and even the reality of agency and of worth beyond money as how we keep score.
It seems to me that the period after WWII through to Reagan was a period characterized as much by the development of a robust civic sector as by the economic benefits of stakeholder capitalism. Isn’t much of the MAGA movement tied to the loss not only of the capacity to make a living but also of the capacity of for agency as a community member and civic actor?
In the NYTs 2/12/25, Tessie McMillan Cottom described Musk’s effectiveness and impact as his capacity to make the our world, meaning American politics, governing, culture, etc., more sensible to millions of Americans for whom government and civic life are remote, unassailable, scary, alien.
A big question is how do we do this for those millions of Americans through democracy as a living force?
I agree that more than just stakeholder capitalism is probably necessary. But I do not understand how the non-economic elements of American historical dynamics in the mid-20th century worked, so I have nothing to say.
My analysis is not meant to be complete. I present the bits and pieces I worked out. Mostly my focus is on economics and politics because I started with stock market cycles and it grew from there.
That said, I think making economic policy choices like those then (high margin income tax rates, higher tax rates in investment income, ban stock buybacks, balanced budgets etc.) would be an excellent start. The problem is on cannot just implement these because they do no work through (short term) economic forces, but through (long term) cultural forces..
The economic effect of higher tax rates is to slow growth; while the cultural effect effect is faster growth. The economic environment created by these policy changes affects executive behavior. If executives can no longer be monetarily incented to focus on share price they will stop doing do. In business, you get the behavior you incent. So behavior will change. Repeated behavior becomes habit. A collection of habits is a culture. Over time the old generation CEOs who started out under shareholder culture will retire because they aren’t making as much money anymore and the kinds of strategies their built their careers on are no longer effect. A new generation takes their place, one not so focused on share price as were their predecessors.
But to see this play out you need to be able to maintain the high tax and other policy for long enough (a decade or more) for it to take hold. Hence you need to manage the politics. For that I use the Skowronek system to described how the politics works. To keep the stakeholder-generating policy in place long enough to succeed, you need to stay in power at least 12 years. To do that you need to elect a Reconstructive president and establish a dispensation.
Mike, how many “paupers” do you know well enough to have insight into their “spiritual and emotional lives”? This is stereotyping, and in my experience, wrong. (My experience being someone who has worked with poor people professionally for 25 years, mentored youth for more than 30, and lives with two of my adult mentees.)
Most poor people I know are deeply involved in their family lives, as parents or caregivers for vulnerable elders or young adults. I see the same range of spirituality as in middle-class people, with perhaps more of a skew to the deeply religious end of the spectrum.
In my experience, people become addicted because their parents were, or as a reaction to other trauma such as sexual abuse. Many young adults go through a drug-using phase and then mature out of it. The effect on kids varies depending on when that maturing phase takes place.
Poor folks who are deeply involved with their family lives are not paupers.
My wife and I are former foster parents and I was Big Brother for a poor kid. Some of them have done very well, one is a married to a school teacher with four kids homeowner with rental property owner, another (this is my Little) is married to an RN, public health nurse, homeowner, two kids who are doing extremely well. He marvels at how confident and resilient him older son (now 16) is compared to himself at the same age. I tell him that is YOU and involved father who is always there showing what it is like to be a man. You didn;t have that, but look at what you wrought. Then there were the kids who came over on the Mariel Flotilla. She got less than 600 on her SATs and yet graduated from college and got a post graduate degree. How? Have you seen the film King Richard? Well he is like she is, a force of nature.
Then there are others, one of whom we adopted and who has struggled. The paupers I describe have mostly been the people around her. And yes she and they live on the edge of homelessless. If we were not supporting her here and there she would be on the street. These are people who just cannot cope. Like the guy she is with had inherited a house from his mom. He sold it for $170K with the idea of buying another one. Well he blew all the cash and is now living in a hotel with my daughter and isn't paying, he wants here to pay for it. She has paid for three weeks but it for the fourth week we are going to have to pony up the cash or she is on the street. Now he had given money for a weeks rent but then demanded it back saying he was moving out. Now he's back and the money is, of course, gone. he is the most recent of a string of guys like this.
Thank you for your posts. I just stumbled upon them, and appreciate your point of view, which I share, and your historical and statistical analyses. It is most useful to read practical explanations of our economic and political landscape, and the ways we need to change.
I find your analyses very powerful and I basically always agree with them to the extent that I understand them. I have long been guided in my own understanding of where we are and what’s needed by a much more, shall we say, straightforward analysis, which is attributed to FDR:
“If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.”
You focus in this post on something I think is absolutely vital and foundational to this moment in our history, which is that Neoliberalism has made it virtually impossible for millions of Americans to ‘make a living’ in America and this needs to change. And this addresses a part of what I believe is meant by that FDR quote above: If people know that, at the very least, they can enter the workforce and make a living wage, this will go a long way towards ‘bettering the lot’ of our citizens and make them far less vulnerable to the attractions of demagogues promising to better their lot.
However, I think that there’s more involved in addressing the threat of growing authoritarianism: it has to do with democracy moving forward as a ‘living force.’ To me, this involves much more than overcoming economic insecurity or transitioning back to stakeholder capitalism dedicated to universal economic viability. It has to do also with being civically viable. With having a sense and even the reality of agency and of worth beyond money as how we keep score.
It seems to me that the period after WWII through to Reagan was a period characterized as much by the development of a robust civic sector as by the economic benefits of stakeholder capitalism. Isn’t much of the MAGA movement tied to the loss not only of the capacity to make a living but also of the capacity of for agency as a community member and civic actor?
In the NYTs 2/12/25, Tessie McMillan Cottom described Musk’s effectiveness and impact as his capacity to make the our world, meaning American politics, governing, culture, etc., more sensible to millions of Americans for whom government and civic life are remote, unassailable, scary, alien.
A big question is how do we do this for those millions of Americans through democracy as a living force?
I agree that more than just stakeholder capitalism is probably necessary. But I do not understand how the non-economic elements of American historical dynamics in the mid-20th century worked, so I have nothing to say.
My analysis is not meant to be complete. I present the bits and pieces I worked out. Mostly my focus is on economics and politics because I started with stock market cycles and it grew from there.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/how-anomalies-drove-my-social-science
That said, I think making economic policy choices like those then (high margin income tax rates, higher tax rates in investment income, ban stock buybacks, balanced budgets etc.) would be an excellent start. The problem is on cannot just implement these because they do no work through (short term) economic forces, but through (long term) cultural forces..
The economic effect of higher tax rates is to slow growth; while the cultural effect effect is faster growth. The economic environment created by these policy changes affects executive behavior. If executives can no longer be monetarily incented to focus on share price they will stop doing do. In business, you get the behavior you incent. So behavior will change. Repeated behavior becomes habit. A collection of habits is a culture. Over time the old generation CEOs who started out under shareholder culture will retire because they aren’t making as much money anymore and the kinds of strategies their built their careers on are no longer effect. A new generation takes their place, one not so focused on share price as were their predecessors.
But to see this play out you need to be able to maintain the high tax and other policy for long enough (a decade or more) for it to take hold. Hence you need to manage the politics. For that I use the Skowronek system to described how the politics works. To keep the stakeholder-generating policy in place long enough to succeed, you need to stay in power at least 12 years. To do that you need to elect a Reconstructive president and establish a dispensation.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/the-importance-of-a-political-dispensation
Mike, how many “paupers” do you know well enough to have insight into their “spiritual and emotional lives”? This is stereotyping, and in my experience, wrong. (My experience being someone who has worked with poor people professionally for 25 years, mentored youth for more than 30, and lives with two of my adult mentees.)
Most poor people I know are deeply involved in their family lives, as parents or caregivers for vulnerable elders or young adults. I see the same range of spirituality as in middle-class people, with perhaps more of a skew to the deeply religious end of the spectrum.
In my experience, people become addicted because their parents were, or as a reaction to other trauma such as sexual abuse. Many young adults go through a drug-using phase and then mature out of it. The effect on kids varies depending on when that maturing phase takes place.
Poor folks who are deeply involved with their family lives are not paupers.
My wife and I are former foster parents and I was Big Brother for a poor kid. Some of them have done very well, one is a married to a school teacher with four kids homeowner with rental property owner, another (this is my Little) is married to an RN, public health nurse, homeowner, two kids who are doing extremely well. He marvels at how confident and resilient him older son (now 16) is compared to himself at the same age. I tell him that is YOU and involved father who is always there showing what it is like to be a man. You didn;t have that, but look at what you wrought. Then there were the kids who came over on the Mariel Flotilla. She got less than 600 on her SATs and yet graduated from college and got a post graduate degree. How? Have you seen the film King Richard? Well he is like she is, a force of nature.
Then there are others, one of whom we adopted and who has struggled. The paupers I describe have mostly been the people around her. And yes she and they live on the edge of homelessless. If we were not supporting her here and there she would be on the street. These are people who just cannot cope. Like the guy she is with had inherited a house from his mom. He sold it for $170K with the idea of buying another one. Well he blew all the cash and is now living in a hotel with my daughter and isn't paying, he wants here to pay for it. She has paid for three weeks but it for the fourth week we are going to have to pony up the cash or she is on the street. Now he had given money for a weeks rent but then demanded it back saying he was moving out. Now he's back and the money is, of course, gone. he is the most recent of a string of guys like this.
So yeah, I have some experience with this.
That helps put it in perspective, thanks.
Thank you for your posts. I just stumbled upon them, and appreciate your point of view, which I share, and your historical and statistical analyses. It is most useful to read practical explanations of our economic and political landscape, and the ways we need to change.