Many decent, sensible people voted for Trump because they believed that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans had stopped the downward spiral of the middle class.Economics can help explain much of the working-class's support of Trump, and on a grander scale the swing to populism in America, as well as in many other developed countries globally (see commentary on the collapse of established political parties in France, or the rise of the Five Star Movement in Italy here, here, and here).
First, what does it mean to be a populist? The underlying characteristics of populism are an ideology that pits a good and moral population against a corrupt elite. This ideology then takes on many moving parts like socialism, nationalism, or anti-imperialism to explain the world around them and to justify specific agendas. For example, in Poland a religious-nationalist populist, Mr. Kaczynski, pushes for a Catholic takeover of the country's institutions from the elite secular liberals. In Netherlands, Mr. Wilders, is demanding a crackdown on the "Islamization" of Europe in defense of women's rights and LGBT rights. In Spain, Podemos - a socialist populist party, is aiming to seize vacant buildings owned by banks and distribute them to the poor while attacking the elite groups.
In America, populism means a division of a virtuous general population against corrupt elites that constrain the will of the people. On the right, this can also be spun as the people, including the white working class, against certain ethnicities identified as foreigners who are thought to be the enemy (Latin Americans and Middle Easterners). So why have these sets of ideas become increasingly potent and prevalent in American politics?
The economic pain of blue collar voters - largely the white working class - can illustrate the populist movement in the United States. Following the Great Recession, citizens experienced many economic struggles. Unemployment skyrocketed and entire job markets were lost. Journalists have found that some companies used the recession as an opportunity to fire low-skilled workers and replace them with labor-saving machines. The financial crisis not only shocked the United States financial system, it damaged citizens confidence in the policymaking elites. The people who feel these problems the most are those in the working-class who have not received any "bail-outs" similar to those the largest banking and regulatory institutions did receive.
A Harvard study (by Raj Chetty) documents the sharp decrease in social mobility in recent decades (1940's children broadly out-earned their parents, but only half of those born in the 1980's will). Mr. Chetty finds that this change in mobility is largely a response to automation in factories and the widespread use of computers. Advancements made computers technologies have replaced many jobs that used to be done manually by low-skilled workers. Those jobs are now replaced with a computer engineer, or other high-skilled worker, who uses advanced technological skills to work these technological jobs. The low-skilled workers remain in labor, but there is a sharp decline available jobs.
Mr. Chetty's study illustrates a wide gap of "middle-class" jobs that have effectively vanished. An increase in international trade has allowed job making companies to offer low-skilled jobs to those who can do the work the cheapest, which often is someone who lives outside of the United States. This results in jobs being outsourced to other countries where the cost of labor is lower. Economic data suggests that outsourcing is good because it is the most cost effective and efficient way to produce goods and services. However, that fails to address the individual citizens concern that there are fewer and fewer jobs in the United States for the low-skilled worker.
The result of both the Great Recession and advancements in computer technology is a large population of working-class people who have been left behind by the elite policy makers of the country. These very real struggles have spurred a populist movement of voters who have aligned themselves with a figure head who has publicly and fervently opposed elite policy makers, President Donald Trump.
There is a need for politicians to discuss the economic issues faced by the populists' opposing the elite policy makers. Trump, however, has used his alignment with the populist movement to further his agenda and maintain a voter base. His rhetoric claims the loss of jobs in America is due to illegal immigration and the "others". This separates the populist citizens (the good and moral population) against "others" in order to maintain the support of the populist movement. He holds that the failure of the financial system and resulting outsourcing of jobs are the fault of the "policy making elite" or the "swamp" in Washington. Putting the pure and decent population against the "other" is a great and effective fear tactic. Trump expertly fed into these ideas with his drain the swamp and build the wall campaign strategies. Trump and the right even succeeded in goading elite white people into dismissing non-elite white people as racist and ignoring their economic concerns.
All of this creates a populism movement that may have lasting effects for years to come.
The economic concerns of the working-class in America has moved beyond trade and immigration (see commentary in this article) because job losses consistently result from technological advances as opposed to disruption by an "other." As a nation, we should strive to raise skill levels through better education and skills-training programs. This administration seeks to avoid education and give low-skill workers their old jobs back (for example the re-opening of coal mines) without regarding this advance in technology as a driving force. The left has proposed little to combat this problem besides expanding job training at the corporate level. How we decide to cope with the economic woes and the surge of technological advances will dictate how our society responds to the populist movement in the United States.
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