Neoliberalism Lies: James Carville is Right

This is an email sent to Al Hunt and James Carville at their Politics War Room podcast.

Hello Al and James,

When talking about trickle-down economics arguments, James Carville is 100% correct.  All that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy do is make corporations and the wealthy richer. It amazes me that anyone with some curiosity and a computer can see for themselves the correlation between supply side economic policy and rising wealth inequality, but we still debate this fact as if somewhere in the future is tipping point when all this generous wealth will start trickling down to the little guy. It is baloney.

The confluence of economics and politics is one of the most consequential disservices inflicted on the American people.  Myth becomes dogma and today’s economic dogma started with political myths launched by politicians like Ronald Reagan and economic theories from the likes of Authur Laffer. It is called neoliberalism.

The problem with economics is selective persuasion.  People choose the economic theories that support their political nostrums. If you want to cut taxes, the remedy isn’t a Keynesian solution (unless you are also a Modern Monetary Theory adherent, maybe) even if the Keynesian argument makes sense.  When politics filter economic facts neither the politics nor the economics of a solution will make sense unless you get lucky.  And when luck wins out, that “solution” often becomes elevated to something people will glorify as a law, a hardboiled economic fact, when really it is only a matter of chance that theory matched practice and appears to have delivered a positive result.  Right now we are suffering from one of those rules, the so-called Taylor Law that states when inflation increases the solution is always interest rate increases.

Unfortunately, most Americans get their economics education from TV news anchors and pundits and that is the *worse* place to get this kind of information (not counting you guys, of course!) because TV anchors and pundits don’t know squat about economics!  They are wrapped up in the neoliberal myths and dogmas that have defined political economic discourse in this country since the early 1980s.

My two cents!  And looking forward to next week’s show.

–Shane