Nov 11
Why Our Civilization Needs a New Deal
What the Democrats — And Every Sane Political Party — Should Do Next
It's a remarkable moment for America. Trumpism's spell appears to be broken — because Americans are outgrowing it. It's xenophobia, hate, spite, violence — these don't have the same thrilling allure they once did. And that's no small thing — because in this world, where authoritarianism and fascism are spreading, a global populist stretching from India to Sweden — outgrowing demagoguery is a singular accomplishment for a nation.
But America's hardly out of the deep, dark woods either, yet. Celebrate, applaud. And then reflect. On a simple enough question. What should the Democrats do now?
If you don't like the phrase "the Democrats," fair enough — I'm hardly a card-carrying member or President of the Fan Club. Substitute something like this: if you're lucky enough to outgrow demagoguery — then what? What should you do next? After all, that's just the first step in turning a society around — or navigating the civilizational scale challenges of the 21st century. So: what's the next step back to sanity after you put the demagogue's demon back in it's box?
Something very much like this.
The Democrats would have won a landslide if they'd made a stronger pitch to Americans about the economy. That's not "my opinion," really — it's a fact. Voters' number one priority was the economy, and they turned back to an old myth that by now's spread across much of the world. That myth goes like this: conservatives are better at the economy.
Think about how our politics really works for a moment. It's built on a set of myths that have been drilled into the populace over time, by jackhammers pounding away at their skulls. Those myths are things people simple come to assume. They go like this. Conservatives are naturally better at some things: national security, the economy, growth, inflation, immigration, foreign policy, crime. Liberals, on the other hand, are better at others: maybe science, or setting up schools, the environment, justice, managing public institutions.
This set of assumptions has spread from America to Britain and now beyond it. It's shaping European politics, too, now, driving the spread of the far right in Sweden and Italy and France. It's true across generations, too — even young people tend to be taken in by it. So what's the problem with all that?
Well, everything. I'm going to make a point, but it's not about partisan politics — rather, it's just about truth.
There are three mega-problems lurking in that set of assumptions that people make, which is what politics really boils down to. One, the set of stuff liberals are assumed to better at's much smaller. Two, the issues they're assumed to better at managing are less bread-and-butter, not so close to home, not so existential and basic and fundamental, but more rarefied, less populist, hence the accusation of "liberal elites." But it's the third problem that's the really Big One. None of the above is true.
It's a simple fact of the modern world that everyone should know by now. This list, which is a set of assumptions that's drilled into people practically from the day they're born, by everyone from Rupert Murdoch to Elon Musk — wait, are they actually the same person in two bodies?— is flat out wrong. It's false. Nobody's naturally "better" at some issues. Rather, different ages call for different responses — and some responses are dead ends in history, like fascism.
That's abstract, so let me explain. Are conservatives really "better at the economy"? LOL, if you read me and any other good economist under the sun, we'll all point to the same example. The example of what happened to Britain. Two decades ago, perhaps the highest living standards in the world — today, a failing state, global laughingstock, and pariah, with an imploded economy, a cratered currency, and zero economic future. What happened? Brits voted not just conservative, but in a death spiral of increasingly extreme conservatism for three times as long as Trump was in power. By the time conservatives are out of power in Britain, they'll have held the reins for fifteen long years. That's a lifetime in modern politics — and it's also the closest thing the world's seen to a natural experiment in quite a while. What happens if you vote conservative, then more conservative, then finally ultra mega fanatically conservative, for people who are so far right wing that even the markets run away screaming, and dumping your currency?
Everything blows up.
Again, not my opinion. It is a fact. One glance at Britain alone should teach everyone thoughtful something. The set of myths that are modern politics are just that — myths.
Now let's come back to what the Democrats — and every sane political party, really, across the world — should do. They have to dispel these foolish myths. You see, America rejected Trumpism. The day will come, too, when Britain rejects xenophobia and hate, when Sweden and Italy and France weary of it, too. But then what? Then they have to do the hard work of undoing these myths, so they can do the harder work of creating a future worth inhabiting.
What does that really mean though? Something like this.
The Democrats (or, "every sane political party in the world") will have to point out that this set of myths isn't true. You know how America finally began talking about Trumpist Big Lies as Big Lies — and by doing so, American culture really changed? It became credible, only, really for fanatics and lunatics to go on believing in them, and thus Americans rejected Trumpism. So job one is teaching people that the future is going to need to be very different.
From what? From what they've been taught to erroneously believe. Here, let me finally put all that in Plain English, because I know it's getting complicated, so let's simplify it, and then it'll all make way more sense.
The Democrats ("every sane political party left in the world") have to get out there, now, and begin saying things like this. Hold on, I'm going to write a speech. Feel free to use it.
"So you're concerned about the economy? You want to know why prices are rising, and don't stop? OK, let's talk turkey. Time for some tough truths.
Those guys over there? The ones blaming it all on scapegoats? They say that in every country now, and all of them are dead wrong. In Britain, they blamed it on Europeans, then refugees, now Albanians. In Europe, they blame it on Africans. In India, on Muslims. In America, they blamed Jews and women and gay people. For what? For taking 'your' jobs and futures and livelihoods.
Those guys didn't take your jobs. You want to know who did? Well, number one, the guys that you think are better at managing the economy. It's conservatives who pushed to basically shut manufacturing in the West and who oppose investment in building things, from factories to roads to machines. But you want to know who's taking your future?
The same thing that's taking all of our futures. The planet is boiling.
I know you don't think this affects you very much, but it does. Prices rising? For so long? They used to blame it on Covid, but it clearly can't be that anymore. So what is it? The planet can't supply us with the same stuff at the same levels of abundance anymore. That level of plenitude is over.
You know it's over, because you can see it all around you. The Mississippi's running dry, and so did the Rhone. Australia burns in one season, Asia floods in another, California and the Pacific Northwest burn in another, and the ice sheets collapse in the next. On and on it goes, and it's getting worse by the year.
What does all that do? It hits you right in the pocketbook. Crops fail. Water supplies go dry. Electricity prices shoot up. Oil and gas get more expensive, not just because of random war, but warlords will try to monopolize resources when they know the world is running short of them. Today it's Putin — tomorrow, who? What's made of oil and gas? Everything from plastic, which is most of the stuff in your house, to steel, iron, glass, cement, and fertilizer. What does all that amount to?
The planet boiling equals inflation, forever. Climate change is the biggest inflationary shock in human history. And this is just the front of the shockwave, the smoke clouds billowing from the lava, which is about to come pouring down the hillside. And we're standing in the way.
What happens as a result of mega-scale climate impact driven inflation? Well, central banks, seeing prices skyrocket, respond by raising rates. So you get hit by a Big Crunch. Now your groceries cost eye-wateringly more, because guess what, growing all that stuff on a boiling, drowning, burning planet is much, much harder — and then you go home, and look at your credit card bills, car payments, mortgage statement, rent, and that's when you really wince in pain.
Want all that to stop? Of course you do. Then you have to get real. You can't just blame it all on scapegoats, who have nothing to do with it, and if they did, well, wouldn't countries like Britain be in fine shape? What does some poor refugee have to do with any of this? Nothing. And you have to wise up and get it. We are in a much bigger mess than that.
If you really want the economic pain to stop, then we can't do it the old way. It's not going to work like that. Our civilization is running short of all its basics — all of them, from water to energy to timber to food — and it's not going to stop. It's only going to keep on accelerating.
And if you get me so far, then the solution — the old one — is actually making the problem worse. The problem: climate-driven inflation. The old solution: raise rates and tamp down demand. But the problem isn't too much demand — see anybody with too much money, apart from creepy weirdos who buy global comms platforms to sway elections and then run them into the ground? The problem is too little supply. There's only way to fix that problem, and it's investing. Big time.
We need a New Deal for all of us. Not some kind of Marxist-Leninist — or Ayn Randist — utopian fantasyland. A New Deal for our Civilization.
We're living at the end of the Industrial Age — only we're not acting like it. We're at the limits of what the planet can supply us with now, and yet we haven't pioneered making any of the following in post-industrial ways: food, water, energy, cement, glass, steel, fertilizer.
We have a civilization-sized problem, in other words. We don't know how to make this stuff without killing the planet, but killing the planet is taking our economies with it. Catch-22. Either we have way, way less of this stuff, every year, at increasingly exorbitant prices, and soaring interest rates — and that lack of supply comes, by the way, with fewer and fewer jobs every year, too.
Or we learn how to make it all over again. Post-industrially. In ways that don't kill the planet, and burn the house down from inside. Think about this — really think about it. We don't know how to make the basics we all depend on, rely on, need — a single one of them — at even a national scale, let alone a civilizational one, post-industrially. Not a single one.
Sound like a big problem? It is. That's why we're in an economic mess — because we're at the end of an economic era, and we haven't laid the groundwork for a newer, better one yet. Hence, it's chaos out there. As economic ages end, this is what happens: there's less and less to go around, because the old ways don't work anymore. Prices rise, interest rates soar, and it's a vicious cycle into oblivion, unless.
Unless you invest in reinventing your economies. In our case, that means learning to make these basics that we all need, rely on, depend on, post-industrially. That doesn't mean "not in factories" — sure, in factories, which create tons of good, decent, highly skilled lifetime-sized jobs. But it does mean without carbon, with way less water and energy, without destroying ecosystems, not to mention democracies, meaning without creating the inequalities that leave us unable to invest in that stuff in the first place.
The first set of countries to do all that? They'll be the great powers of the future. Why? Well, imagine you're the first country that can really sell the world any facet of a post-industrial economy. Clean energy? It's super cheap. So is closed loop manufacturing, or production without wasting huge amounts of water and electricity. The first nation to really offer the world any of this stuff — being able to make the basics we all need, and are now going into short supply — is going to have the world beating down their door. Who wouldn't an agricultural system that doesn't need dirty, expensive fossil fuel? Or endless cheap energy? Or factories that can make stuff out of the same old stuff, over and over again? The first countries to get there are going to get rich.
They're going to be exporting the post-industrial economy to every corner of the globe — from India to China and beyond. And as they become powerhouse exporters, a wave of jobs of the future is going to be created. Towns and cities will come back to life again — ones that got hit hardest by offshoring and globalization. The upside is historic and tremendous, because….
This is the beginning, most likely, of the Great Climate Depression — one which history will remember as the Greater Depression. How long can a civilization accustomed to easy, cheap plenitude really survive on a dying planet? The Great Climate Depression, though, could be followed by the Big Post-Industrial Bang. A new era where growth soars into hyperdrive — only this time, it's OK to grow, because it doesn't kill the planet, and take democracy with it, because now that growth is made of stuff that's good for us, the planet, life on it, and the future gets better again.
Now we know how to make all those basics we rely and depend on — food, water, energy, medicine, steel, glass, iron, cement, right down to household goods like plastics — in ways that are almost purely beneficial, and not harmful. When we get there? Growth will roar, because everyone wants that stuff, the whole world, needs it, and it'll create whole new industries, sectors, and wave after wave of jobs, too.
Let me flip that around, too, though.
Only a civilization that can produce its basics in better ways can keep growing now. We have no choice. It's either slowing growth, forever — if we cling to the dying embers of the industrial economy — or it's a Big Bang of growth, if we reinvent the economy so we can really have abundance again, this time, even better.
That's a New Deal for Civilization. It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be cheap, either. Here, let me blow your mind for a second. When was the last time we did something like this? Well, America's New Deal built the Hoover Dam. Today, the Hoover Dam makes more in a year from electricity than it cost to build it back then. That's what investment does. It returns stuff to us. Not just money — but what money represents. In this case, electricity, cities, people living their lives and going about their business and reaching their potential.
We need a New Deal that invests in every single basic our civilization needs. Making it post-industrially. At a civilizational scale. That's the only way out of this mess. The only one. The planet's not magically going to fix itself. If we keep on making and consuming the old way, we kill the planet, while prices skyrocket and interest soar, because scarcity goes into overdrive, and growth declines, and goes negative, into the future, more or less forever. If we blame scapegoats while all the above happens, then we only make things worse, by giving power to demagogues with no solutions. Concerned about the economy? Good, you should be. There's only way out, and that's reinventing it.
The choice is up to you, I guess. But before you make it — remind me, how much more did you pay for groceries today?"
See where I'm going with that? That's the kind of thing that the next step's made of. Outgrowing the fascists and lunatics is a wonderful accomplishment. But the future is bigger yet than that. It's a step — but only the first one. On the road back to civilization.
Umair
November 2022
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