We care about freedom from hunger, unemployment and poverty — and, as FDR emphasized, freedom from fear. People with just enough to get by don’t have freedom — they do what they must to survive. And we need to focus on giving more people the freedom to live up to their potential, to flourish and to be creative. An agenda that would increase the number of children growing up in poverty or parents worrying about how they are going to pay for health care — necessary for the most basic freedom, the freedom to live — is not a freedom agenda.
Champions of the neoliberal order, moreover, too often fail to recognize that one person’s freedom is another’s unfreedom — or, as Isaiah Berlin put it, freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep. Freedom to carry a gun may mean death to those who are gunned down in the mass killings that have become an almost daily occurrence in the United States. Freedom not to be vaccinated or wear masks may mean others lose the freedom to live.
There are trade-offs, and trade-offs are the bread and butter of economics. The climate crisis shows that we have not gone far enough in regulating pollution; giving more freedom to corporations to pollute reduces the freedom of the rest of us to live a healthy life — and in the case of those with asthma, even the freedom to live. Freeing bankers from what they claimed to be excessively burdensome regulations put the rest of us at risk of a downturn potentially as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930s when the banking system imploded in 2008.
I’m listening to the article now.
TL;DR, the author argues that capitalism went wrong starting with the Reagan administration. Laissez-faire capitalism is clearly a mistake, and they argue that we should push back and establish a more progressive form of capitalism.
As a socialist, I would be thrilled if this became the mainstream view. We need to start taking steps toward a more progressive society. Starting by taxing the rich, getting money out of politics, and stricter regulations on business and wealth.
It’s just kind of a funny thing to say “progressive capitalism”. Capitalism itself is a regressive system… but the ideas presented here are indeed good. I like seeing this in WaPo.
Like the 25% billionaire tax, 21% minimum tax on corporations, increasing stock buyback tax from 1% to 4%, denying corporate deductions for employee compensation that exceeds $1M, and lowering taxes for low and middle class that’s part of Biden’s tax plan?
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2169
It goes into effect when Trump’s tax plan skewed for the wealthy expire at the end of this year. Trump’s tax cuts for low and middle class expired in 2022. Tax plan balance has to be verified as fiscally feasible by the IRS, and Trump’s plan couldn’t afford to continue tax cuts for everyone through 2024, so he kept them for the wealthy and screwed the rest of us.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver
That is a fantastic start, yes, exactly. I still think we can do better than this, like a 75% billionaire tax, but I’m okay with walking, not running, to the desired goal.
The choices at the polls will take us in two opposite directions. Neither is ideal, but Trump clearly favors billionaires at the expense of the workers.
Trust me, I know. I criticize Biden because unlike Trump, he actually listens to criticism. It’s good advocacy. Of course I will be voting for him, in spite of the genocide he’s enabling.
Agreed. It’s horrible to have to pick the “less genocide supporting” option. I deeply hope the investigations and munitions pause are the beginnings of change.