HOG HELLSCAPE THE POLITICS OF PARASITE BARRY YEOMAN E. TAMMY KIM JANUARY 13/20, 2020 ARUNDHATI ROY THENATION.COM Version 04-11-2019 INDONESIA’S ANTIGAY CRACKDOWN NICOLE EINBINDER GABRIELA BHASKAR SUCCESSION’S 1% SATIRE 2 The Nation. ERIN SCHWARTZ Join the conversation, every Thursday, How Much Is on the Start Making Too Much? A surging egalitarian current is shifting Letters the Democratic Party’s policy mainstream @thenation.com Sense podcast. SAM PIZZIGATI DECEMBER 2/9, 2019 THENATION.COM Is a Deficit Really a Strength? “the full faith and credit of the United States”? Homer Edward Price In “Red Ink. The New Black?” sylva, n.c. [December 2/9], Marshall Auerback advocates extremism on federal deficit Keynes did not teach us that running spending. But it is not clear to me a deficit is always OK. He taught us what his attitude is on the progressive that in a severe depression, when there Subscribe wherever you presidential candidates’ proposals for is (a) monetary hoarding or (b) insuf- get your podcasts or go to increased taxes on the wealthy. Would ficient investment even at a zero rate of interest, then deficit spending will TheNation.com/ he advocate making huge new expen- ditures on Medicare for All and the be needed. Pseudo-Keynesians claim StartMakingSense that deficit spending is always needed, to listen today. Green New Deal with no offsetting revenue increases? He demonstrates period. Thus Keynes’s prescription, valid for the 1930s and the 2008 crisis, STACEY ABRAMS MARGARET that tax cuts for the rich have little pos- is said by expenditure devotees to jus- itive effect on the economy. Would he ATWOOD CHARLES M. BLOW tify unbalanced spending, always. agree that, conversely, more taxes on NOAM CHOMSKY DAVID COLE Sorry. Check The General Theory of them would have little negative effect? Employment, Interest, and Money. MIKE DAVIS ELIZABETH DREW My inclination is toward prudence, In normal, nondepression times, BARBARA EHRENREICH FRANCES which I am sure is a word that Auer- here’s what happens. The government back hates even more than “modera- FITZGERALD ERIC FONER runs a deficit. It has to borrow. The tion.” I am old enough to remember THOMAS FRANK ALEX GIBNEY Fed provides the money to the gov- the inflation that resulted from the MICHELLE GOLDBERG ernment, which buys the investment quadrupling of oil prices by OPEC in goods or services it wants. This cuts AMY GOODMAN CHRIS HAYES the late 1970s, the skyrocketing inter- the goods available to the private sec- SEYMOUR HERSH MARGO est rates that the Federal Reserve used tor, and prices rise (inflation). People JEFFERSON DAVID CAY to try to quell that inflation, and the are suckered by the inflation, ending economic recession those interest rates JOHNSTON NAOMI KLEIN up with a lower real wage. Keep using caused. Fortunately, the federal debt the trick, and you’ll generate rising RACHEL KUSHNER VIET THANH was then at its lowest point relative to inflation, because at each iteration, NGUYEN NORMAN LEAR GDP since before the Great Depres- people anticipate the last inflation rate, GREIL MARCUS JANE MAYER sion. Today the federal debt is slightly so you have to go even higher. higher than the GDP. If that had been BILL MCKIBBEN WALTER MOSLEY Exactly this happened from 1965 the case in 1980, the interest rate bur- to 1980. Lyndon Johnson financed JOHN NICHOLS LAWRENCE den on the federal budget would have the Vietnam War on the cheap with O’DONNELL RICK PERLSTEIN been significantly higher than it was. deficits. Nobody slammed on the LAURA POITRAS KATHA POLLITT Does Auerback’s extremism mean in- brakes. In 15 years, inflation climbed creasing the current debt again? ROBERT REICH JOY REID from 1 percent to 13 percent. At this We should not ignore the possibility rate, only a man on horseback could FRANK RICH BERNIE SANDERS that external shocks in the future might break the inflation. And so we got ANNA DEAVERE SMITH EDWARD produce a similar situation. The bud- Cowboy Reagan. SNOWDEN REBECCA SOLNIT getary dilemma it would create would Note the pattern: Massive deficit itself be extreme. Should we cut back MARGARET TALBOT CALVIN spending implies surging inflation, on all other federal expenditures to pay which calls forth a nasty rightist to dis- TRILLIN KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL the interest on the national debt? That cipline the workers. Al Shelly YANIS VAROUFAKIS JOAN WALSH would mean withdrawing the social circleville, w.v. AMY WILENTZ GARY YOUNGE supports that people depend upon in Marshall Auerback Replies DAVE ZIRIN a recession. Should we borrow more money to pay the interest, increasing In answer to the many questions —Hosted by Jon Wiener the debt burden that is already more raised, let me start by saying I would than we can bear? Should we default on [email protected] (continued on page 34) UPFRONT 3 English Lessons The Nation. D.D. Guttenplan since 1865 4 Philo-Anti-Semitism Eric Alterman 5 The Score Bryce Covert 8 India’s Fate COLUMNS 6 Subject to Debate English Lessons Holiday Giving Guide Katha Pollitt 10 Mic Drop The Death of he UK election result is a staggering and historic defeat Human Rights for both Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. Not even Rafia Zakaria 11 Deadline Poet Neil Kinnock (a Labour leader known in the United The Low Point? States for being plagiarized by Joe Biden) or Michael Foot Calvin Trillin T(whose 1983 Labour manifesto was once described as “the longest suicide Features note in history”) managed to lose so badly. The 12 India: Portents of “red wall” of safe Labour seats in Britain’s northern manifesto, but they didn’t believe it would deliver. an Ending Arundhati Roy industrial heartland—including Blyth Valley, which In Britain, that lack of credibility should prompt Prime Minister Narendra had never elected a Tory before, and Tony Blair’s the painful debate that Corbyn’s surprise election Modi and the Hindu former constituency of Sedgefield, held continu- as Labour leader in 2015 cut short on the role of supremacist Rashtriya ously by Labour since 1935—has crumbled to dust. a movement and a party built on the values of the Swayamsevak Sangh Britain will now certainly leave the European British industrial working class when that class are trying to shrink a continent into a country. Union, probably by the end of January. It is that has been globalized, automated, and economically certainty, more than any other factor, that explains liberalized to near-extinction. Amid the oceans of 24 Honor Roll 2019 John Nichols both the fact and the scale of the Conservative ink spilled over Corbyn’s failure to adequately ad- There were many triumph and the stunning transformation of Boris dress anti-Semitism in the party—a moral question contenders this year Johnson from a bumbling oaf without whose practical electoral impact was neg- for The Nation’s annual a mandate who couldn’t get a single bill ligible—far too little attention was paid roster of most valuable through Parliament into a prime minis- EDITORIAL to the deep roots of Labour’s dilemma. progressives. Here are a few of the people and ideas ter with a majority no other Tory leader Once the 2008 financial crisis exposed that are shaping the future. has enjoyed since Margaret Thatcher. New Labour’s promise of a booming 28 Raising a Stink Johnson bet the House (of Commons) on skills-based economy as the fraud it al- Barry Yeoman this election—and won. ways was and with mounting inequality Will the world’s leading On Johnson’s signature project, drag- rubbing salt into the old wounds, what pork producer be held ging Britain out of Europe, Corbyn was did the party really have to offer? responsible for making never close to effective. While Labour Meanwhile, here in the United States, life unbearable in rural Southern communities? fussed and fidgeted over Brexit, promis- Labour’s defeat prompted a veritable ing both to negotiate a new deal with the EU and stampede of pundits eager to hammer home the Books & the Arts then to hold another referendum on that deal—in supposed lesson that Corbyn—like Bernie Sanders 35 A World to Win which Corbyn pledged to remain neutral—Johnson and Elizabeth Warren—was simply too far left to Daniel Immerwahr and the Conservatives offered clarity and closure. win. This not only ignores the decisive influence of 38 Book of Dolls 45 The Tory slogan “Get Brexit done” might lack the Brexit but also overlooks the success of the Scottish (poem) pop-psychology punch of “Take back control,” but National Party, whose platform is well to the left of Bruce Bond as a banner for co-opting Nigel Farage’s far-right anything on offer by the Democrats. 39 Grid (poem) Brexit Party while rallying the many Brexit-fatigued Yet the British result should sober all of us on the James Richardson voters who cared less about the means than about left. The temptation to tell people what’s good for 41 Fire and Brimstone putting an end to the country’s seemingly endless them isn’t just a British disease. Nor the tendency Jillian Steinhauer torment, it was pretty close to perfect. to dismiss workers as hidebound, hopelessly prej- 44 Upstairs, Downstairs Which isn’t to say that Labour would have done udiced, and increasingly irrelevant—or the habit E. Tammy Kim better with an unequivocal Remain stance. None of of addressing the electorate you’d like rather than the Labour defectors who urged their constituents the one you get on Election Day. Like Labour, the VOLUME 310, NUMBER 1, to follow them to the Liberal Democrats kept their Democratic Party has decades of broken promises JANUARY 13/20, 2020 seats.