Mark Blyth – A Brief History of How We Got Here and Why

This lecture is part of the McMaster Department of Philosophy’s Summer School in Capitalism, democratic solidarity, and Institutional design https://www.solidaritydesign2019.com
This lecture sets out a brief history of two versions of capitalist software. The first drove the capitalist hardware during the period known as the Great Compression—1945 to 1980. The second did the same for the period many refer to as the era of neoliberalism—1980 to 2008. This lecture describes the bug in the system that crashed the first version of the capitalist software and the subsequent design of the neoliberal software. It also describes the bug that led to the 2008 Great Recession, landing us in the current transitional period that we might describe as the era of neonationalism or Global Trumpism. A key idea is that the emergence of contemporary populist politics, both left-wing and right-wing Trumpist variants, are attempts to rewrite the software of capitalism once again.

Mark Blyth – Why People Vote for Those Who Work Against Their Best Interests

Mark Blyth’s best seller Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea https://amzn.to/2Lcw556 Mark Blyth is a British political scientist from Scotland and a professor of international political economy at Brown University.
37:43
here’s a story when they did the Podesta
email Hawks when they got the Democrats
emails somebody took the data from
WikiLeaks and decided it was called geo
locate the data in other words what were
the place names that the leading
Democrats who are the last part of her
mentor represent all of us remember
right not the elite Republicans what
were the police names that he talked
about and their private communications
and their selection what was the number
one most frequently named place in their
communications can you guess have a
guess Martha Martha’s Vineyard yeah
number two Eastern Southampton then New
York then San Francisco then I think it
was Ellie in DC and the rest of the
country two standard deviations out so
what’s the imaginary of a party this
seeks to represent all if that’s all the
places did they talk about because
that’s where the money is and it’s not
just to castigate the Democrats the
British Labour Party was like this under
blare of the German SPD under shorter
it’s done that’s the left is
systematically failed the people that it
supposedly represents so why should we
be in the least surprised that they
defect and then go to any one at all
that actually says here I know that
everyone’s ignored you for 25 years I at
least hear the fact that you’re crying
and I understand why people’s everyday
experience is very different from a
national average walking out and telling
people that the price of iPods has
fallen which means that really they’ve
got more money than they think at a time
when they can’t afford to send their
kids to college or their kids would be
insane to take on that much debt because
it’s like having a house with no ASSA
it’s just parts on izing and the example
of immigration occupied to that one it’s
very different depending on where you
live
immigration to me is another person from
another interesting country who has a
phd but that’s what it means where I
live right but that’s because I’m in the
top 20% if you’re living in public
housing in France right and those
resources are been finite and those
resources are being cut and you’re the
ones are confronted with incredibly
different cultures coming and not
integrating with you taking the
resources from you at least as you
perceive it and that’s what’s been
narrated by the National Front don’t
expect them not to make end roads
because it gels with everybody’s common
sense regardless of whether we can say
well on average and migrants benefit the
economy no one lives in an average now
the problem here now close with us is
.. prompted the following response I think
the election of Trump has been good for
climate change because it stops the rest
of the world waiting around for America
to solve the problem
so if the gentleman’s and the Chinese
now get together and do technolog
greentech bring it to scale China for
example has installed more solar in the
past few years in the United States has
right if they end up doing that we’re
the suckers because we should have been
leading the investment we’ll be buying
it from them
but in a way if that forces them to do
that and that’s good in a global sense
go for it so does that mean Trump was a
good leader in that regard well that’s a
different question right but it can have
a positive effect so the mark like let’s
not summit all up to you know the one
leader the genius the charisma whatever
the doesn’t that’s not good we are
thinking about it they can’t make a
difference but the key thing is when
they’ve actually got the trust of
everybody who’s who wants them to lead
that’s when societies work better but
when you have leaders who are divisive
who pet people against each other I
never walk so for anybody that’s the
type of populism you want to avoid all