Regardless of who wins, places or shows in the Iowa caucuses tomorrow, this much is certain. The eventual Democratic nominee will confront two big challenges in the general election: how to unify and energize the party’s progressive and moderate wings while attracting a healthy majority of the nearly 40 percent of voters who consider themselves independents; and how to neutralize or even turn the tables on the opposition’s central argument about the strength of the economy.
No candidate has yet provided a convincing answer to both questions. To be certain, a veritable policy renaissance has broken out among the primary candidates over the past year. But winning a durable governing majority, as opposed to eking out a narrow victory that leaves the country evenly divided and still immobilized on the day’s great issues, will require more than a portfolio of innovative policy proposals. It will require a larger narrative that conveys a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Optimally, this narrative would frame a new governing philosophy that contextualized these proposals as elements of a strategic response to the reasons why American capitalism has gone off the rails during the past generation. Thus far, however, the candidates have focused on the trees — the relative merits of their individual proposals — rather than this forest.
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The last two policy revolutions that spawned political realignments in the U.S. — the New Deal and the Reagan Revolution — were achieved by revisiting first principles of American political economy and reformulating them in a way that recast the role of government in the economy — and with it, the terms of political debate — for a generation. A little-noticed development of the campaign thus far is that this Democratic policy resurgence has begun to do just that.
To understand the significance of the pattern that is emerging from these proposals, we need to be reminded that the production of goods and services (GDP) is just a top-line measure of national economic performance, analogous to the way revenues (sales) are commonly considered the top-line measure of business performance and profits are considered the desired bottom-line result.
The bottom-line way societies — people — judge their economy’s success is not GDP growth but, rather, progress in the living standards of their households and communities, i.e., in the lived experience of ordinary families. And yet, as in a business, it is very difficult to grow the bottom line over time without increasing the top line. GDP growth remains vitally important to progress in living standards for the simple reason that it is easier for everyone to receive a larger piece of pie if the entire pie — the national economy — is expanding.
The cultivation of strong, sustained, broad-based socioeconomic progress therefore requires policymakers to adopt such an explicit twin focus. This is particularly true when markets are undergoing substantial liberalization, integration or technological disruption, since these impose increased human costs in the form of dislocation, insecurity and income dispersion. Governments in modern market economies need to adopt a dual economic policy anchor — national income growth and median progress in living standards. Each objective requires conscious policy effort and performance measurement in its own right.
Like a person who can only see through one eye, standard liberal economics suffers from limited depth perception and peripheral vision in managing the performance of economies because it is not conceptualizing, pursuing expressly through policy or measuring national economic performance simultaneously through these two lenses. Rebalancing capitalism in the 21st century and reclaiming it from the clutches of 20th century neoliberalism begins with reconstituting economics, both scholarship and policy practice, so that it focuses at least as much on cultivating the median living standards of nations as the aggregate wealth of nations.
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This doctrinal departure from trickle-down economics, which I call level-up economics, is the implicit thread running through the policy platforms of 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls, both active and recently suspended.
Regardless of whether they self-identify as democratic socialist, progressive or moderate, the candidates have all proposed or endorsed multiple measures to increase direct support to various dimensions of household living standards. These proposals would use government in new ways to improve the social inclusiveness and sustainability of economic growth and prepare people better to navigate the transformation of work.
Without altering the market’s central role in resource allocation, this new Democratic agenda seeks to improve the diffusion of progress in living standards more directly — through strengthened institutions and incentives in such structural policy areas as training, housing, compensation, environment, health, infrastructure, etc.
Business and political leaders commonly describe people as our economy’s most important resource, but they perennially fail to walk this talk by investing adequately in their capabilities and living standards. This reflects the traditional emphasis on boosting investment in physical and financial capital, often through huge, untargeted expenditures of public resources (e.g., across-the-board personal and corporate tax cuts) having, at best, an indirect effect on jobs and living standards. This new level-up approach, by contrast, focuses on increasing direct public and private investment in multiple aspects of the workforce potential and economic security of households. As such, it would structurally (i.e., as part of the growth process itself) improve the capacity of market economies to diffuse the benefits of growth, thereby bringing more of society along on a nation’s upward development journey.
It also would boost growth. Strengthening skills, consumer purchasing power, and business and public investment in the real economy would lift labor productivity, disposable income and aggregate demand. Adapting power, transport, water and industrial infrastructure to the requirements of the Paris climate agreement would boost employment and median incomes. When assessed against the bottom-line metric of national economic success — broad progress in living standards — these would be far more effective uses of additional public expenditures than the cuts in individual, corporate, estate and other capital income taxes that are the mainstay of trickle-down economics. A win-win-win for the economy — higher growth, greater equity and lower risk — becomes possible by viewing it through the bottom-up, people-centered prism of level-up economics rather than the top-down, financial markets-centered lens of trickle-down economics.
This is akin to what AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka calls kitchen-table economics. While unabashedly progressive in the Roosevelt (both TR and FDR) tradition, the kitchen-table framing and people-centered, human-investment focus of level-up economics lends itself to being articulated in the universal vernacular of the typical household’s purchasing power, employment opportunity and economic security, rather than the divisive language of ideology or identity. It also uses the aspirational vocabulary of business managers and entrepreneurs: economic growth and opportunity. As such, it has the potential to galvanize a much larger political coalition than either party or any faction thereof currently commands.
That is the larger significance of the recent Democratic policy renaissance, which is shaping a new type of structural economic reform that is pro-growth as well as pro-equity and pro-sustainability. Indeed, it is pro-growth because it is pro-equity and pro-sustainability. If enunciated properly, it could reframe the terms of political debate for a generation to come, recasting our conception of government’s role in the economy in line with the demands of the digital age and finally carrying us beyond the stale capitalism-vs.-socialism, moderate-vs.-progressive polemics which have dominated political discourse for the past year and past generation.
Richard Samans is a managing director of the World Economic Forum, chairman of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, and member of the International Labor Organization’s Global Commission on the Future of Work. He formerly served as special assistant to President Clinton for international economic policy, as National Security Council senior director for international economic affairs, and as economic policy adviser to Senate Democratic Leader Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.). The views expressed here are solely those of the author and are drawn from the research paper, “Level-Up Economics: Beyond the Wealth of Nations.”
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will not be taking advice from Pierre Poilievre after the Conservative leader challenged him to bring down government.
“I say directly to Pierre Poilievre: I’m not going to listen to you,” said Singh on Wednesday, accusing Poilievre of wanting to take away dental-care coverage from Canadians, among other things.
“I’m not going to listen to your advice. You want to destroy people’s lives, I want to build up a brighter future.”
Earlier in the day, Poilievre challenged Singh to commit to voting non-confidence in the government, saying his party will force a vote in the House of Commons “at the earliest possibly opportunity.”
“I’m asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday’s byelections: will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.
“It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”
While Singh rejected the idea he would ever listen to Poilievre, he did not say how the NDP would vote on a non-confidence motion.
“I’ve said on any vote, we’re going to look at the vote and we’ll make our decision. I’m not going to say our decision ahead of time,” he said.
Singh’s top adviser said on Tuesday the NDP leader is not particularly eager to trigger an election, even as the Conservatives challenge him to do just that.
Anne McGrath, Singh’s principal secretary, says there will be more volatility in Parliament and the odds of an early election have risen.
“I don’t think he is anxious to launch one, or chomping at the bit to have one, but it can happen,” she said in an interview.
New Democrat MPs are in a second day of meetings in Montreal as they nail down a plan for how to navigate the minority Parliament this fall.
The caucus retreat comes one week after Singh announced the party has left the supply-and-confidence agreement with the governing Liberals.
It’s also taking place in the very city where New Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat on Monday, when voters go to the polls in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. A second byelection is being held that day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, where the NDP is hoping to hold onto a seat the Conservatives are also vying for.
While New Democrats are seeking to distance themselves from the Liberals, they don’t appear ready to trigger a general election.
Singh signalled on Tuesday that he will have more to say Wednesday about the party’s strategy for the upcoming sitting.
He is hoping to convince Canadians that his party can defeat the federal Conservatives, who have been riding high in the polls over the last year.
Singh has attacked Poilievre as someone who would bring back Harper-style cuts to programs that Canadians rely on, including the national dental-care program that was part of the supply-and-confidence agreement.
The Canadian Press has asked Poilievre’s office whether the Conservative leader intends to keep the program in place, if he forms government after the next election.
With the return of Parliament just days away, the NDP is also keeping in mind how other parties will look to capitalize on the new makeup of the House of Commons.
The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it’s written up a list of demands for the Liberals in exchange for support on votes.
The next federal election must take place by October 2025 at the latest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is defending her decision to turn off comments on her social media accounts — with an announcement on social media.
She posted screenshots to X this morning of vulgar names she’s been called on the platform, and says comments on her posts for months have been dominated by insults, to the point that she decided to block them.
Montreal’s Opposition leader and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have criticized Plante for limiting freedom of expression by restricting comments on her X and Instagram accounts.
They say elected officials who use social media should be willing to hear from constituents on those platforms.
However, Plante says some people may believe there is a fundamental right to call someone offensive names and to normalize violence online, but she disagrees.
Her statement on X is closed to comments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
