The Decline of America Anusar Farooqi (‘Policy Tensor’) has provided an excellent discussion1 of how the decline of America come about and what can(?) be done to reverse it - and why Trump does not have the answers.
He does not discuss who have been responsible for the decline or whether it could have been omitted.
In my mind there is one culprit: liberalism.
Let me explain:
The Law of The Market Society Liberalism potently exploits egoism - calling for individual freedom (of enterprise) and forgetting the importance of collective values and equality of rights and endowments....
Branko Milanovic thinks human needs are infinite and that both Keynes and Marx where wrong to think otherwise.
Even best among the economists, like Ricardo and Keynes (in “The economic prospects of our grandchildren”) thought that human needs are limited. We should know better today: the needs are unlimited and because we cannot forecast the exact movements in technology, we cannot forecast what particular form such new needs will take. But we know that our needs are not finite....
To solve the Climate Crisis increasing economic productivity and energy efficiency is not sufficient. Absolute decoupling of economic growth and environmental degradition, including global warming is not feasible (Hickel and Kallis (2019) Is Green Growth Possible?). We will have to stop economic growth itself or even degrow on a global scale.
Growth economists have always had models that in the long run end in a steady state. That’s just mathematics. Many economists have been thinking about ‘steady state economics’ for a long time....
There exists a well-known Swedish song from my childhood. It begins like this:
Lyckliga gatan, du finns inte mere Du er försvinnen med hela kvarteret ... In English the meaning would be:
Oh Happy Street of my Childhild you no more exits You are now gone together with the whole quarter ... The lyrics profondly catches the sorry mood of someone experiencing the arrival of the ‘Development Machine’ in their neigbourhood....