I recently traveled to New York and visited, as is my habit, or vice, some of the main bookstores to find out what people read, current issues that concern society. This time I was impressed, as never before, by the titles that predominate. Those of a society in crisis, overwhelmed, sick, not only because of Covid-19, but also because of multiple “viruses”, although also struggling to find each other again.
A vast bibliography on the tragic history of African-Americans from slavery to “structural racism” and police violence. Feminism and the fight for gender equality, nationalism, nativism, migration, inequality; also, under the traumatic impact of the Trump government, books on populism, the path to authoritarian governments, the decline or crisis of democracy, capitalism and the West. Also how to rescue them. Likewise, proposals for new economic paradigms in the face of the decline of neoliberalism.
I will travel this horizon through the books that most caught my attention, deriving ideas and “alerts” about our own “viruses”. Two titles capture the atmosphere: DISRUPTION by D. Potter on social movements that subvert the established order and “DOOM” (“La Ruina”): the politics of catastrophe by the great historian Niall Ferguson, who explores how the pandemic exposes the vulnerabilities of a government and a society. Mortality reflects not only the virus, but the prevailing social order, the incompetence of governments, the disasters caused by the hand of man (Trump, Bolsonaro, López Obrador?).
SURVIVING AUTOCRACY by Masha Gessen. It is a book, not about the experiences of a third world country, but “Surviving the autocracy” of Trump. How what he calls the “Mafia State” arises, which distributes money and power among his clan. He describes his government as that of the Kakistocracia, the government of the worst, acting through “occurrences” and “flashes.” In him the words lose their meaning, he perverts the language. He is the liar President who threatens the existence of journalism, essential for democracy, which must guarantee the right of the people to be informed and create a “shared reality”, not alternative falsehoods. The “government of destruction”, which captures the institutions of the State. It embodies the end of dignity in the leader’s behavior.
WHY WE’RE POLARIZED? (“Why are we polarized”) by Ezra Klein. It analyzes how people are tied to the “politics of identity”, be it race, culture or religion, without any candidate or information making them change their affiliation.
It leads to the “politics of hatred.” The “change” is a threat and makes people more conservative. An example is demographics, whose trends mean that whites are no longer the majority of the population. The media divide, select what they report, make up the news, that the other is not listened to, but what their customers want to hear. The prototype is the opposites, CNN and Fox. The Democrats are the party of “all non-whites” and the Republicans, the party of threatened whites, with very different platforms. In this context, “presidentialism” with the Executive of one party and the Congress of the other, reflecting the widest political gaps in its history, present greater political dysfunction than “parliamentarism” in which the prime minister automatically reflects the majority.
HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE by S. Levitsky and D. Ziblatt, analyzes how democracy dies, always by different means. Authoritarians now gain power through voting, maintain the guise of the Constitution and Democracy, but use them to subvert order through legal means. Thus, the erosion of democracy is imperceptible!
Democracy is in crisis. Trump was no exception. It was part of a worldwide trend toward authoritarian populism. Orbán, Kaczynski, Netanyahu, Erdogan, Modi, Bolsonaro, Duterte. They have developed the “Authoritarian Populist Art of Governance Manual.” They take advantage of the arsenal of weapons provided by the economy, patronage, patronage, they use the weapons of the State to persecute the innocent and protect the guilty of the clan.
THE POPULIST TEMPTATION by Barry Eichengreen. In populism the economic malaise provokes the reaction of the voter against the “establishment”, the leader is strong and charismatic, he awakens nationalism against foreigners, racism against minorities. The antidotes are policies to reinforce growth, nurture the hope of young people, give confidence to the elderly that they will be cared for in their old age, social support must be given to individuals displaced by technical progress, international competition.
DEMOCRACY UNCHAINED: How to rebuild government for the people? (“La democracia desencadenada) by DW Orr et al. They also appreciate the 2016 Trump election as a turning point. Democracy is threatened by “structural racism”, inequality, the crisis of representation. Add another problem, democracy does not have an easy relationship with capitalism. It should not be “deregulated.” Trump showed all the symptoms that discredit democracy: an incompetent government that does not govern; it appoints officials who are very inferior in view of the importance of their functions, sometimes attacking themselves; weakened capacity of the Executive to reduce its taxes (or not increase them), so it has to reduce social spending for the poorest.
Trump damages institutions, but the “populist opposition underestimated the undemocratic threat, they cannot work together, they fail to build a positive long-term vision towards a better country; they do not convince the citizen that they can offer greater tangible benefits; They are obsessed with presenting the enemy’s failures, thinking that if they show their lies, their failures, the country will wake up from the nightmare, but it does not offer a constructive alternative… ”They seem to describe Mexico.
The above phenomena give rise to an important bibliography of authors in search of a new paradigm of economic strategies, before the exhaustion of liberalism and that they can rescue democracy and capitalism.
TEN LESSONS FOR THE POST-PANDEMIC WORLD Fareed Zakaria, which can be summed up in: strengthening the State, but with quality, not quantity; the market is not enough; inequality will deteriorate further; experts and scientists must be listened to, but these sensitive to people; the world will be digital; globalization is not dead, but it must be regulated; to be realistic, deep down is to be idealistic.
THE WAKE-UP CALL (“El Despertar”) by Micklethwait and Wooldridge, editorialists for the Economist. CV-19 exposed the weaknesses of the West, compared to Asian countries. The virus was a test of the capabilities of the state. Few Western governments passed the test, not the US, not the UK. Serious flaws in its healthcare system and an incompetent bureaucracy. Mexico would be in the country of the disapproved. The West must react in all orders to overcome the Asian challenge.
Great new book that of M. Mazzucato in THE MISSION ECONOMY A moonshot guide to changing capitalism. The government must focus its strategy on selecting and carrying out great aspirational “missions”, such as landing on the moon. Policy must be measured by results. The public and private sectors must collaborate towards common goals. Banks finance production more and not just financiers. The new “Entrepreneurial State” must foster innovation.
THE POWER OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION by Phillippe Aghion when we have the information. Creative destruction is the process by which new innovations make existing technologies obsolete, new companies emerge, old companies die. This is the driving force behind capitalism. Just more capital is no longer enough. The resistance comes from entrenched companies that do not want to change: in the US oil companies, coal, non-electric cars!
THE DEFICIT MYTH (“The deficit myth”) by Stephanie Kelton. This is a revolutionary book. Governments should not depend for their income only on taxes and credit, they should increase public spending, incurring, if necessary, deficits and the issuance of banknotes. Its only limitation is to avoid inflation, derived from limitations in productive capacity. The government is not a family or business economy. The “miracle” of the government deficit is that it is the surplus of another economic unit, which benefits and makes productive use of money, stimulating the creation of infrastructure or social programs against inequality. It all depends on what you spend and do it in moderation. Biden (and other governments) are applying this “modern monetary theory” (MMT).
I hope this “cluster of ideas” can stimulate a helpful reading!
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