TIMOTHY NOAH MAY 3, 2012
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Editors’ note: No Democratic president has won in recent decades on a platform of economic populism. But with the rhetoric of the 99 percent still in the air, and a proposal for a ‘Fair Share Tax’ at the center of his current platform, it seems President Obama might be attempting to do just that. We’ve asked a number of TNR writers to discuss whether it makes sense for Obama to run as a populist. Can a Democrat win on a populist message? Should Obama try? Click here to read the collected contributions.
Although I haven’t made a close study of it, I’m told that the “populist” themes spouted by Al Gore in 2000 and by John Kerry in 2004 did not stir the proletariat. I think it’s going to be different this year, because income inequality has finally become a topic of interest to the public, and because the GOP has become so gorgeously vulnerable in this area. It has a presidential candidate who got rich in finance, and a House majority leader who’s willing to say out loud that he’d rather tax poor people than raise taxes on rich people. God doesn’t furnish opportunities like this very often.
But I’m not sure populist is the right word for what President Obama is already doing (or, for that matter, what Gore and Kerry were doing in 2000 and 2004). I think the right word is progressive. I don’t mean “progressive” in its contemporary sense as a euphemism for “left-liberal.” I mean “progressive” in its historic sense.
The Progressives of the early twentieth century (some of whom founded this magazine) actually started America’s discussion about income distribution; the first serious study on the topic was published in 1915 by a largely-forgotten economist named Willford King, a student of the famous Progressive economist Richard T. Ely at the famously Progressive University of Wisconsin. (To find out why it wasn’t until the Progressive Era that Americans got interested in income distribution you’ll have to read my book.) The Progressives were more like Barack Obama than the Populists were. They valued inductive reasoning and rationality, as Obama does—they were mad for statistics—and they felt more comfortable operating within the established corridors of power. Although they had their shortcomings (most famously a susceptibility to the pseudoscience of eugenics), they were freer from the racism, xenophobia, and inchoate resentment that often fueled the People’s Party.
President Obama’s argument for the Buffett Rule, which would require millionaires to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes, isn’t fueled by a pitchfork-waving hatred of the rich. It was a rich guy—Warren Buffett—who first suggested it! Rather, it’s an appeal to reason: It doesn’t make sense for Buffett to pay less in taxes than his secretary does. Just as people toss the phrase “class warfare” around way too casually—we’ve actually had some class warfare in this country, and people died fighting it—so, I’m starting to think, we’re too quick to call “populist” any endorsement of the idea that there needs to be some check on the wealth and power of rich individuals and rich corporations. Obama has quite plainly expressed that he aims to follow in the footsteps not of William Jennings Bryan but of Teddy Roosevelt. In the current political environment (where TR gets branded a “socialist”) that’s more than brave enough. And I say, bully to the president for going there.
Timothy Noah is a senior editor at The New Republic.
5 comments
Noah, to his everlasting credit, approches inequality more as an academic exercise than a political exercise; it's the approach taken in his book and the approach taken in the interviews about his book. I might prefer a little more fire, a little pitchfork-waving, but that's not Noah's approach. Indeed, the graphics in his book don't even attempt to arouse emotion! And Noah's principal solution, labor solidarity (my description, not his), doesn't even take aim at the beneficiaries of inequality. I've commented against a populist campaign for much the same reason: the splintering (or division) of America has made government (i.e., shared) solutions to economic (and other intractable) problems unacceptable to a wide swath of Americans, and a populist campaign would only serve to create even more splintering. What's needed is a campaign in support of solidarity, not division. Whether it's called reason or progressive, it's not populist.
- rayward
May 3, 2012 at 9:52am
Thanks for the nice word, rayward!
- Timothy Noah
May 3, 2012 at 10:42am
I'm not going to read his book for the details, but Romney's former partner (Conrad) has written one defending inequality on the grounds that wealthy people save more and, hence, generate more investment (savings = investment, the identity that defenders of inequality cite as often as tax cuts). The obvious question for Conrad is what would be the optimal level of inequality? If 17% inequality (i.e., the concentration of income in the top 1%) is good, then wouldn't 50% be better, and 100% best. His answer, I assume, is that the optimal level is whatever level occurs naturally in the market (i.e., a market free of intervention). I also assume that Conrad has faith in classical theory, that the market, if left alone and over time, will produce a full employment equilibrium, a much richer full employment equilibrium because of all that investment by wealthy people. Faith, I suppose, is a naturally occurring phenomenon in all people, including faith in the "markets". When confronted with facts, such as human suffering on a vast scale, many people lose religious faith. And so it was with Lord Keynes (and faith in the markets), who observed an equilibrium of low output and high unemployment. I might observe that much of today's investment, attributable in large part to historically high levels of inequality, hasn't been in plant and equipment or even people, but in financial assets to take advantage of asymetrical information; indeed, the largest hedge fund, the one created by Ray Dalio, invests exclusively in such financial assets. I might also observe that much of today's growth in religious faith is a product of a very different religion, one based more on the believer than the believed, and known by different names including the prosperity gospel. Faith, it seems, including both faith in markets and religious faith, is subject to revision to avoid contrary and unpleasant facts. This is the unabridged version of my comment to express agreement with Noah.
- rayward
May 3, 2012 at 11:57am
Bravo Mr. Noah! Of all the articles on this subject so far this one hit's the nail on the head as far as my views go. You get it right about the diffrence between "populist" and "progressive," at least as to how the progressives of history actually operated, something which I think the other articles tend to miss. The progressives of their time in power were very moderate compared to some of the early rhetoric coming out of Unions and the peoples parties that sprang up around the turn of that century. They weren't so much as radical as in they were people who looked at a clearly wrong situation (at that time, the state of workers in a newly industrialized state and monopolies blocking effective competition) and fixed it in a moderate and even handed way (along the way even giving us national parks, yay!). To call TR a "socialist" or anything of the likes go on to show a clear seperation of fact from perception in todays politics. The free market was very much alive and well throughout the progressive era. And if only TR was around today, he would have challenged Hannity or Beck to a duel by now.
- ARealHero
May 3, 2012 at 12:19pm
And bully to you! Congratulations on the book -- mine is on its way! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/160819633X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER
- Wonderland
May 3, 2012 at 5:37pm