Economics and us

The confluence of economic failures on a multidimensional level has a way of historically seeping into politics that affects our daily lives. Parallels repeat themselves across nations as economic weakness affects citizens on both a global and domestic basis provoking boom and bust cycles that create bubbles which gradually erode stability.

In turn, social unrest ensues which leads to sociopolitical polarization that fundamentally transforms public policy prescriptions to cure ailments which aren’t at the root of our core issues nor does any substantial work in solving the problems initially set out to be fixed. This leads to politicians on both the left and the right engaging in crooked, manipulative measures aimed at convincing the public to accept their distortionary vision of the future and view of the present. As a result, the ballot box witnesses the rise of leaders who are emblematic of governmental corruption and those who embody an erratic ignorance that ultimately harms all people whom they seek to lead and represent. As last night’s presidential debates illustrate, leaders on both sides of the political spectrum who fail to meet the threshold of leadership quality are launched onto our television screens to portray themselves as worthy of our representation when the truth we know paints a starkly different picture.

The materialization of this type of division across populations is the prevailing trend on a transcontinental level that, time and again, yields self-defeating results. From Europe to Asia to here at home in America, anxiety over a radically changing economy fundamentally transformed by automation, globalization and a forceful internationalism has had an impact on the direction of our political discourse and the political agendas of elected and aspiring national leaders. Social issues like illegal immigration, law and order and the marginalization of minority communities in tandem with global issues like trade liberalization, income inequality and currency manipulation have opened Pandora’s box socially, economically and politically. The resultant institutional deterioration harms those who need the help of government the most while redirecting efforts at problem solving to problems that don’t necessitate prioritization in the first place.

The most prevalent example reveals itself in the quintessential instance of institutional meltdown on a massive financial platform: the Great Depression. As wealth and credit contractions spread due to the reckless monetary policy of the Federal Reserve, elected leaders in the 20th century pushed for greater regulation and protectionism at a time of declining world trade and production. Most infamous of all, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act increased tariffs by 20 percent which contributed to macroeconomic malaise. As a result of anxieties from society’s most vulnerable, our government initiated a domino effect of protectionism that led us to retreat inward instead of engaging in cooperative financial partnerships with our fellow nations of the world.

On Sept. 9, 1930, a moratorium on immigration was imposed on all foreigners excluding students studying abroad, professionals, and tourists. Our immigration forces in the Labor Department were ordered to exponentially increase the number of deportations. Nativism manifested itself just as strongly in the past as it has in the present. It seems that internal issues that undermine our confidence in our economic futures repeatedly leads to a reallocation of blame that ultimately weakens our country. As the French philosopher Rene Girard once wrote, “Everywhere and always, when human beings either cannot or dare not take their anger out on the thing that cause it, they unconsciously search for substitutes, and more often than not they find them.”

While the diminishing of American economic vitality did not lead to the rise of a strongman or tyrant, the policies that have become the cornerstone of nationalist leaders here in the United States and across continents—ardent immigration controls, protectionism, and an aversion of multilateralism—have highlighted the wish to scapegoat others for the woes stemming from the decisions of status quo leaders. In turn, fallacies turn into action that pushes nations in a direction in the complete opposite direction thereby reinforcing false beliefs free of a factual foundation that undermines the essence of a democracy’s purpose: the betterment of the people.

John Guarco is a Trinity senior. His column, “carthago delenda est.,” runs on alternate Tuesdays.