On the surface the economic policies of Joe Biden, Ronald Reagan, and Franklin D. Roosevelt look very different.
They’re not. Each path has been designed toward the same aim, benefitting a dominant industry.
Today that industry is computer technology – chips, software, and the cloud. Look at the latest Forbes 400. That’s where the money is. Found a tech company and, if you’re lucky, you can become a billionaire. Jeff Bezos likes Bidenomics.
What do tech companies need? What is the gating factor to their growth? It’s people. To be specific, smart people. It doesn’t matter what color the skin, what the brains’ sex is or who they love. Can’t get out of your wheelchair? You could become Stephen Hawking.
Educated, motivated, empowered minds are what make technology happen. What do such minds need? Security, challenges, the ability to chase their dreams, unencumbered by other worries. It’s true they need the three-legged stool of capitalism, democracy, and personal liberty. But they also need time to focus on the task at hand, all the time they can get. If you’re worried about your kids or your parents, if you’re worried about your health, that’s mental energy that’s not going into the work. Tech needs all of that it can find to discover the next big thing.
This wasn’t true a generation ago. During the Reagan era resources were the gating factor to growth. Control the oil and you control everything. Reagan raised the military budget and cut taxes so America could control that resource. Yes, wars for oil. You don’t need many minds to find and lift oil. After the 1973 embargo, you needed military and political power to control it. It’s no coincidence that our 41st and 43rd Presidents were oilmen.
Go back another generation. The Great Depression was caused by a shortage of demand. There weren’t enough buyers for what manufacturers were selling. Prices fell, jobs disappeared. The New Deal was all about stimulating demand, putting money in peoples’ pockets, using everything manufacturing (with its steady productivity gains) could produce. The policy prescription didn’t change when the war was over, either. The mass production really was fed by the mass consumption.
The point is that with every generation, America creates a new dominant industry. Our politics, and economy, are run by the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. This is not a bad thing. Political ideology in modern America is just an economic choice.
