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With the exception of the most jaded of children, who celebrated the millennium on January 1, 2001, instead of the year 2000, we are approaching the quarter point of our century. What are the surprises so far? What would have been difficult for people to believe 25 years ago? And that Russia, which was struggling to pay pensioners at the time, would turn into a retaliatory war machine. Islamic terrorism will announce itself one September morning as a force that will haunt us for the rest of our lives, and then largely fail to do so.
And here's another. The United States will overtake Europe in economic growth, and it could not be happier about it. If people ultimately vote on their material experience – which makes sense – America should have more stable politics than Europe, including Britain. Instead, it contains just as much, if not more, anti-establishment populism.
How strange. Perhaps what voters do is compare their economic experience with that of their predecessors, and not with the experiences of their contemporaries in other countries. The important data is longitudinal data, not longitudinal data. But this does not make the economics-is-politics argument seem much stronger. Let us consider Ireland or Poland. Each country has seen a growth in the influence of non-mainstream parties in recent decades. Each of them did so despite their imperceptibly increasing fortunes.
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In the 1980s Sinn Féin won 1 or 2 percent of votes in the Irish general election. In the 2000s, that number rose to about 6. Although it did not make inroads, the party scored 19 percent in last month's elections. Over the same period, the Irish economy has boomed, from one of the poorest in Europe to one of the richest, and from a place of emigration to a place where people are flocking. How does economic determinism explain this? What is the physical explanation here?
Let me make one prediction: that general enrichment can mask, or even create, certain hardships. High housing costs for young people, for example. But this represents a significant amount of statistical selection. In all economies and at all times, there are sectoral problems worth noting. If economic determinism is to be serious, it must be falsifiable. It must take into account the fact that, despite the brutal collapse of 2008, Ireland is richer than it was two generations ago, and enjoys little apparent glory for the entrenched political system that oversaw most of this success. .
Other facts must be faced. Donald Trump was elected in a context of high inflation (2024). But also with low inflation (2016). Populists thrive in free markets characterized by huge income disparities (United States). But also in social democracies (France). In Britain in 2016, disenfranchised young people voted to remain in the status quo, while asset-owning older people chose to leave. Greece, which has had a painful economic experience over the past decade and had the excuse to move to the margins, has a prime minister who represents the international moderate elite. Italy, which has undergone fewer structural reforms, is populist. Not only is there no faithful relationship between economic conditions and political choices, there is not even a useful line of best fit.
If it's not just the economy, what's bothering voters? Immigration, to a large extent. But even this is not a comma. Why did populism not take off in Australia, which has high immigration rates? (Economics probably explains a lot.) The strength of the far-right in France appears to be out of step with the size of the foreign-born population there, which is not an exceptional number by Western European standards.
Another explanation for what happens is “hedonic modulation.” As income rises, so do expectations. Voters become quicker to revolt. In other words, economics is crucial, but not as you might imagine.
Either way, the story of the United States in this century should serve as a punishment for those who view politics as the course of economics. Clearly, it's possible to grow at breakneck speed, build the most powerful companies on Earth from scratch—and have Tulsi Gabbard poised to take on major public office. Economic determinism is soothing because there is a textbook answer to every problem: grow your way out of it. invest. This was the Joe Biden way. In fact, it's a big part of Western liberalism. There is impeccable common sense to it, but there is also intellectual heft. Conservatives were quicker to realize that there were forces alien to material interests at work in the world, and they were quicker to control them.
It's hard to write this column without being mistaken for an outright growth skeptic, and I might as well quote Robert Kennedy's high school graduation speech about all the things GDP can't measure. (“Our strength Marriage“) Just to be clear, then, I'm a growth fanatic. I want 20 million Londoners, not 10 million. But the argument for growth has to be that it's a good thing in itself, and that making more things available to more people is intrinsically worthwhile , and that romanticizing the pre-industrial world is a kind of demented stupidity no And growth leads to healthier policies. If the evidence supports this axiom, it is now much murkier.
In fact, the causal relationship between economic performance and political outcomes collapsed in both directions. Not only can a nation have a thriving economy without any apparent benefit to its policies, but it can also maintain terrible policies without incurring economic damage. At this time of year, we are asked to think about all the things in life that money can't buy. To “love” and “class,” add civic prudence.
