GANESH SITARAMAN: I wrote this book, "The Great Democracy,"
because I think that we're on the edge of a new era in American history. I think it's
really important for people to understand what's at stake in this moment right now.
Since World War II, we've actually lived through two distinct eras in our history. The first was
from the end of the war until the 1970s. And it's probably best described as a liberal era.
It was an era of regulated capitalism that operated between the state control that we saw
in the Soviet Union, and the laissez faire free market system that caused the Great Depression.
It was an era in which big government, big business and big labor worked together
to try to provide social goods for Americans. And in fact, even conservatives during this era
were basically liberal. Eisenhower built the highway system. Nixon said, "I am now a Keynesian
in economics." And then what happened was we went through a period of crisis in the 1970s.
Wars, the oil shocks, stagflation. The end of this era was during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
Democrats controlled government completely, but the party was increasingly fractured,
and they couldn't actually accomplish many of their long held goals.
The second era was an era defined by neoliberalism and it emerged with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald
Regan in the early 1980s. Now neoliberalism is a tough word for a lot of people. And
I think it has a lot of meanings to different people. But really what it comes down to
in policy are four things: deregulation, liberalization, privatization, and austerity.
The basic idea of neoliberalism started to emerge in the mid-20th century. It was partly a reaction
to the New Deal, and moves to create social democracy in the United States and other western
countries. And under neoliberalism, the basic idea is that individuals would be on their own. They
would be responsible for themselves. So instead of government, corporations, and unions balancing the
interest of stakeholders, the primary regulator of social interests would be the marketplace. And
the consequence of this it turned out, however, was actually not what many of the proponents
claimed it would be to start, which was greater competition and a more free society. In fact, what
we've seen over time is increasing inequality, a reduction in opportunity for many people,
and increasing consolidation in markets. And in this period, the neoliberal area,
even the liberals were neoliberal. It was Bill Clinton who said the era of big government
is over, and deregulated Wall Street and Telecom. It was Tony Blair who transformed the Labour
Party in England into New Labour. And again, we then faced crises. Wars, the great recession,
massive levels of inequality, social fracturing. And the end of this area is the presidency of
Donald Trump. Republicans at the beginning of this time controlled everything in government, and they
could not pass some of their long held goals. Their party is also increasingly fractured.
So where I think we are now is that we've lived through a neoliberal era for the last 40 years,
and that era is coming to an end. People are challenging neoliberal ideas in lots of
different ways. There are people challenging it in politics, putting forward bold new
political ideas and policy ideas for how to shape the rules in a different way.
But there are also people who are challenging neoliberal ideas in their own lives and in the
private sector. Thinking about corporations differently, thinking about having workers be
on the boards of corporations. Thinking about goals of corporations as being broader than
just expanding profits for shareholders. But actually having social good and other kinds of
social and public benefits. Part of the way we get beyond neoliberalism
is by seeing that there are other ways to think about the economy, and by recognizing that our
democratic choices shape the economy in the first place. And I think that is how we move forward,
is we have to see this as really a function of democracy. What kind of society do we want
to live in? Rather than just passively accepting the market and its outcomes as something we must
deal with. We don't have to. We can actually choose to have a different kind of structure.
So what happens in this moment right now could actually set the terms of politics for
a generation. And that is a set of big stakes and big choices that are on the table for us.
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