The American election and Brexit have illuminated one important point: “trickle down” economics have finally been exposed for the fraudulent nonsense it always was. The idea was that if you give the rich and the entrepreneurial their heads and allow them free rein to make money, their wealth will trickle down to mere mortals. Well, it doesn’t trickle down; it trickles out. The rebellions associated with Trump and Bernie in the US and the Leave voters in Britain show that the man in the street has seen nothing trickling down; on the contrary, society has become horribly unequal and has left millions with either no job or non-jobs, and little hope.
Right wing politicians loved trickle down. It was the ideology that “justified” the give-aways to corporations and the super-rich in return for election expenses and fancy jobs when they could no longer pull the wool over the eyes of their constituents. Now they are reaping the reward political whirlwind. Trump may not become President, but what he has been “articulating” is not going to go away.
Unless the establishment gets serious and addresses the general disaffection, especially in view of the automation of traditional jobs that is on the horizon – the instability will become very ugly. Already we have people who implicitly don’t mind if we have a dose of what used to be called fascism and autocracy. The establishment is under warning.
This is all a very long way away from the Epicurean ideal of moderation, tolerance and arranging things for the potential pleasure of all. It is alarming, but I think we have to have faith in the overall decency, good sense and moderation of the silent majority of decent people. What’s gone wrong can be put right.
I don’t think trickle down economics is in any way to blame for the rise of authoritarianism in the West, Trump in particular. If people were angry with billionaires, then why elect one of them as President?! It also doesn’t explain why there’s been an increase in right wing populism in countries like France, Denmark and Sweden, where taxes on the rich remain very high.
If people are angry at neoliberal economics, then they would turn to left wing populism- as can be seen in Southern Europe through the rise of Syriza and Podemos; people are angry at neoliberal international institutions such as the IMF, the ECB and the WTO.
As for Brexit, it was more to do with culture and nationhood than economics or class identity. On the one hand, there were plenty of poor areas that voted Remain: the Catholic parts of Northern Ireland, Glasgow and other working class parts of Scotland, East London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, to name a few. There were also plenty of rich areas that voted Leave: South Buckinghamshire, Chichester, the eastern bit of Surrey, Sevenoaks, Cheshire, South Northamptonshire, again to name a few. The areas that voted Remain tended to be areas that were less nationalistic, less socially conservative and more open to immigration than the areas that voted Leave.
Of course I agree that we need moderation, tolerance and decency. But I highly doubt that it will come about purely by fixing the economy. Social attitudes have to be changed. Marx was wrong when thought that religion was a ‘spiritual aroma’ that would disappate in an economically just society. Although the enrichment of the oppressed would help stem the appeal of religion, religion would only go away when people have a change of mindset. In the same way, support for authoritarianism will only subside when a vigorous case for liberalism is made.
Trickle down economics, by definition, means that all the goodies go to the rich elite because “they create the jobs” (although they don’t; they ship them overseas or automate the jobs). What is left over after the CEOs etc pay themselves millions trickles down like dribbles in a ditch to poor, uneducated people, who have at long last cottoned on and are quite happy to espouse the authoritarian clown Trump; others are are just in revolt. This was an event waiting to happen. The Republican re-designed the capitalist system so that the winner takes all, except, lads, we still expect you to vote for us. Trump is popular because he has articulated the despair and anger of the working class, like UKIP and Bernie. Trump is a TV “personality”. All Americans who like down-market TV just love Trump – he is absolutely certain he is right, promises the impossible (but people want to believe him), he has an attractive wife(s) and family, claims he is rich, and that the trickling down is trickling down from him. He is rude about the establishment and tells everyone he understands the rotten system and intends to fix it. Pie in the sky, but they are desperate. The rise of Mussolini was similar, and the only way you change a system that has become so unfair and cockeyed is to be authoritarian. Liberalism could soften a lot of the pain, but a President Clinton will get not one jot of cooperation from the Republican extremists in Congress. The future looks bleak, and the crazies have most of the guns. Pray, please!