Unequal Democracy
I would recommend both Larry Bartels’ book Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age and Theda Skocpol’s review of the book. Bartels’ main point is that contrary to what many believe, partisan politics has a large impact on the course of economic change, with Republican presidents leading to strong income growth for rich people, and Democratic presidents being better than anyone else. Bartels further argues that Republican politician succeed in spite of this fact not because voters are “distracted” by other concerns, but instead primarily because:
– Voters tend to behave only as if election year economic performance matters, not performance across the entirety of a term.
– Fundraising impacts election outcomes in a way that puts a thumb on the scales for politicians with pro-rich-people policies.
– Voters have trouble fully understanding the choices in front of them.
One way of summing it up is simply with reference to Bartels’ first point partisan politics has a bigger impact on economic performance than most people believe, and minoritarian policies can succeed politically precisely because most people don’t understand how important partisan politics are to these kind of outcomes.
What this book made me wish for was more economics: Bartels gives us a lot of empirical political science data that seems to indicate that partisan control of the White House is more economically important than you would think. Contrary to this, there’s substantial economic theory that seems to argue that this can’t possibly be the case. What would be really fantastic would be for Bartels to team up with an economist to attempt a more thorough treatment of the causal mechanism issues than Unequal Democracy offers — a Bartels/Krugman All-Princeton Crossover Spectacular or something.
32 Responses to “Unequal Democracy”
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August 16th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Problem is that Krugman himself expressed surprise at the empirical linkage between Presidential partisan identity and economic impact, and asked for more commentary.
August 16th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
You left out “Both politicians and elections can be bought”.
In one sense, the more important sense, Obama’s fundraising advantage over McCain is reassuring. In another sense I wonder whether some of the wrong people have been buying in. The important bad guys always hedge their bets.
DeLong and Krugman are the kind of people we look to to tell us what’s happening, but they’ve been expressing astonishment over this increasing-productivity-but-flat wages “paradox” for several years now.
Maybe in another decade or two they’ll finally decide that their model is just no damn good. I doubt I’ll live to see that, though, and by that time they’ll be emeritus and no one will listen to them anyway.
August 16th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Krugman on Bartels, per El Cid.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/bartels-alfred-wegener/
August 16th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
You know, it still feels weird that the comments go up without a 2 minute delay and an error message.
August 16th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Thx otto
August 16th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Is what Bartels saying really new? Or just that people don’t talk about it? After all, when was the last time a Democrat spoke to those economic insecurities? Clinton in 1992? And he went and stabbed us in the back with things like NAFTA.
August 16th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
with Republican presidents leading to strong income growth for rich people, and Democratic presidents being better than anyone else.
OMG. Best typo ever.
August 16th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Bartels’ observations are basically two decades behind in their relevancy.
It is telling that people (see recent Ben Stein op-ed) look back on the Clinton years and think of it as a largely regulatory friendly environment when in fact it was pretty aggressively free market in it’s outlook. In short, both the Dems and the Repubs have been selling out socio-economic issues to big business and lobbyists for the last two decades.
As a result what we actually have now is a “middle class” built like a house of cards on debt, and social net that basically doesn’t exist. “American” companies and asset holders have less and less loyalty to this nation or its people and do little to re-invest back in it. It’s far easier to seek cheaper capital and wage arbitrage overseas, while investing profits offshore to avoid taxation.
Basically the social contract that used to hold this country together is far more frayed than what Bartels alludes to.
August 16th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
You forget that, as confirmed by the even-handed reporting in our paper of records, the GOP would never do anything awful to you. Look at the front page this morning on the housing markets. True, Obama wants more regulation, while McCain wants to privatize Fannie and Freddie, but they’re both really just open to reforming institutions so only “a bit” different. Of course, McCain wants to reform social security the same way, so see how progressive he is?
August 16th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Now, if you would only have the intellectual honesty to note:
– more rich money flows to Democrats now than to Republicans, and has since the Clinto Presidency
– What you say about “minoritarian” politics applies just as well to, say, education and teacher’s unions
However, those would cause difficulty for your point, so…
August 16th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
As the Republican Party collapses and the U.S. becomes a one party state the better question would be who will benefit the most from the coming one party state and who will be the losers. If you look at the bluest states, it looks like the public sector will benefit the most but that private sector job creation will be the biggest loser
Where should people invest their money in the coming Obama Adminsitration and the Democratic dominance of all parts of the government?
August 16th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
By rights, both parties should collapse - they both reached intellectual exhaustion a long while back.
August 17th, 2008 at 8:13 am
I don’t think the Republican party will collapse at all. It’s on the verge of being more competitive than ever. With luck what will collapse is its entire capture by its most lunatic Southern and Western hard-line nut battalions.
If its last major regional bastion is the South and a few Western preserves, there will exist a pretty damn clear incentive for the rest of the nation’s conservatives who are willing to return to being the moderate, business conservatives at the root of the Party, and tired of the several generation dominance of the Party by the social conservatives and anti-’government’ brigades who joined after Goldwater / Nixon’s Southern Strategy.
Conservatives in the Northeast, Midwest, Northwest, and West aren’t just going to forever hitch their carts to the losing crazies of the Gingrich / Delay divisions.
If to win outside the South, they have to run as moderate, mostly business-focused conservatives — as much of the Republican party used to be — then they will. And if they have to occasionally face off with some even crazier ultra-populist right wing losers, they will.
People of a certain political outlook, especially a naturally strong one as business conservativism, aren’t just going to give up because one generation of leadership drove them into the dirt. Nor are they going to forever ignore the immense benefits which can accrue from holding the reins of government.
August 17th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Re: As a result what we actually have now is a “middle class” built like a house of cards on debt, and social net that basically doesn’t exist.
America has always had a very minimal social safety net. I don’t think you can make a case that it was significantly better anytime in the past. well within living memory we didn’t even Medicare or Medicaid.
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