WEEK IN REVIEW: "Obamanomics: Capitalism After The Fall," by Richard W. Stevenson, New York Times, 19 April 2009.
Well-written piece.
America has long had one model of consumption-oriented capitalism that was good for us and good for the world, but globalization's spread has advanced to the point where that philosophy has produced structural imbalances that are unsustainable for all involved.
Does that mean the preceding decades were all a lie? A sham? A fraud?
Hardly.
It simply means that our success in spreading our American System-cum-international liberal trade order-cum-globalization forces us into adaptation of a magnitude so significant as to constitute a new era in capitalism.
As always, the critics of capitalism will have their brief field day, as they have had throughout capitalism's oscillating-but-constantly-improving history. And those who err on the side of statism will be celebrated for their cautious wisdom during the tumult.
But real leadership in this timeframe consists of shaping the vision of that next stage of capitalism, not the sideline complaints of those who dream of capitalism's demise (long and often predicted over the decades) nor the timid visions of state bureaucrats who fantasize that--somehow--the "scientific methods" enabled by today's technology will place them in greater control of their fates than past versions did for the likes of the Soviets.
So what is Obama saying?
His goals include diminishing the consumerism that has long been the main source of growth in the United States, and encouraging more savings and investment. He would redistribute wealth toward the middle class and make the rest of the world less dependent on the American market for its prosperity. And he would seek a consensus recognizing that an activist government is an acceptable and necessary partner for a stable, market-based economy.
"We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand," he said last week.
How that equals a "war on the middle class" or a "war on the rich" or a "war on private business" or whatever the hysterics are peddling this minute, I haven't a clue.
To me, it seems like a reasonable description of the direction we'll simply need to move for the foreseeable future, because an America that isn't centered on a middle-class ideology isn't really America anymore.
Done well, we set the example for the global middle class as it emerges, exhibiting the same innovative and visionary global leadership that got the world to this place--a world no longer threatened by great power war and distressed primarily by a lack of sufficient rule sets to manage all the complexity created by globalization.
In short, we need to move onto the next, best set of problems and challenges.
Or we can pretend that real leadership consists of rerunning the mistakes of the first half of the 20th century, before we assumed leadership of this world.
Friday, April 24, 2009 at 3:45AM 
