Uncertain times
What would President Trump do? The new nationalism in Eastern Europe Has economic growth stalled? After the Paris attacks America’s race problem Hillary’s game A social revolution in Ireland 2 PROSPECT
Foreword by Sameer Rahim
ver the last year, Prospect has tracked the big ideas Lee’s great 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird, and its challenging changing our world. In recent months, some of alternative version released last year Go Set a Watchman, tell us these have been distinctly worrying. The rise of about race relations in Barack Obama’s America. Donald Trump in the United States is challenging Hillary Clinton kept close to Obama while she was Secre- long-cherished assumptions about what is accept- tary of State, never displaying in public her frustration with Oable to say in a western democratic election. Trump’s populist his hands-off attitude to Syria. But now she is the Democratic campaign has targeted immigrants—especially Mexicans and nominee, Clinton is being notably more hawkish, writes Mark Muslims—and challenged China in language more suitable to a Landler on p16. One of her worries, if she becomes president, barroom brawl than a diplomatic overture. will be the right-wing turn in Eastern Europe, as described by In “Trump Force One,” Sam Tanenhaus profiles the man Peter Pomerantsev and Anton Shekhovtsov (p20). Poland, Hun- who is now the presumptive Republican presidential candi- gary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are, in different ways, date (p3). He argues that although Trump’s politics are nasty, rejecting the liberalism of the post-Cold War era. his supporters should not be casually dismissed. Often they are The November attacks in Paris left the population “reeling in Americans who have been left behind by the free market, and horror,” says Lucy Wadham (p25). The terrorists targeted the feel like the political consensus does nothing for them. Bataclan music venue, where young people socialised in har- Economist Robert J Gordon and former US Treasury Sec- mony. Wadham writes that the liberal resolve of the “Bataclan retary Lawrence Summers identify economic stagnation as a generation” is more resilient than the attackers think. worrying problem. Gordon argues that technological advances We also looked at the remarkable social change in Ireland. A such as computing have not led to substantial growth; Sum- once conservative country has embraced gay marriage. What is mers, though, is more optimistic about the future (p8). strange, says Gerry Lynch (p33), is that many of its supporters Trump’s rise comes at the same time as increasing racial ten- describe themselves as “passionately Catholic.” sion in the US. On p29, Diane Roberts looks at what Harper Sameer Rahim is Prospect’s Arts & Books editor
Contents
03 Trump Force One 16 Hillary’s game 25 “This is our struggle, 33 The strange death of sam tanenhaus mark landler not yours” Catholic Ireland lucy wadham gerry lynch
08 Growing pains 20 Rolling back freedom 29 The war’s not over yet robert j gordon and peter pomerantsev and diane roberts lawrence summers anton shekhovtsov
Follow twitter.com/prospect_uk www.facebook.com/ Prospect.Mag PROSPECT 3 Trump Force One Donald Trump’s vows of vengeance against America’s enemies could propel him to the White House. What would he do there? sam tanenhaus
fter the latest round of United States primaries and ignore these mounting affronts or act as though ordinary Ameri- caucuses, more than half of the 50 states had cho- cans are to blame. sen their preferred candidate—and Donald J Trump That Trump should be the voice of this protest is unusual, had galloped far ahead of the Republican field. He given his own wealth and opulent lifestyle—part Medici, part has kept winning, all over the map, some of the victo- Kardashian. But revolts are commonly led from above. It may be Aries strikingly large, 19 states so far, from Alabama (rural, evangel- true that Trumpism amounts to little more than “a smelly soup ical, low-income Deep South) to Massachusetts (urban, secular, of billionaire populism and yahoo nationalism—all flavoured prosperous New England), and Michigan (industrial, working- with a tangy dollop of old-timey racism,” as David Remnick, class) to Florida (urban and rural, ethnically diverse). The only Editor of the New Yorker, put it in July last year. But Trump’s question now is whether Trump’s two remaining opponents, Texas supporters have been hearing such insults for many years now, Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, can deny him directed at themselves. And nothing so unites rich and poor, the the nomination outright before the party’s delegates convene in favoured and the unlucky, as the feeling that they are being rid- Cleveland, Ohio, in mid-July. iculed by the same people. No matter the outcome, Trump already seems to be remak- What provokes Remnick, and others, is Trump’s long history ing the Republican Party, if not in his garish image, then along as one of Manhattan’s glitziest presences. He has owned a sports the lines of his fixations and enthusiasms. It is fast becoming “the team—the New Jersey Generals, an American Football team that party of Trump,” as the New York Times has declared, in mingled played three seasons in the now defunct United States Football horror and amusement. League, a competitor of the established National Football League But what is this new Republican Party? Who belongs to it? (NFL). He owns exclusive golf courses with exorbitant member- What do they want? What do they see in Trump? And what does ship fees. His name is affixed in giant gold letters on some of New he see in his own presidency? What would he do if he does get York’s most expensive apartment buildings. For many years, he to the Oval Office? has been flattered by maître d’s at the 21 Club and other dens of No one, least of all Trump, can really say. His ideas, or effu- the rich and famous. But with this comes something else, often sions, on policy—domestic and foreign—come in soundbites, emo- overlooked—a wider orbit of experience than the typical novice tionally vivid, but frustratingly devoid of nutriment. His slogan, politician travels in, and far greater freedom of speech and act. “Make America Great Again!” emblazoned on the caps he sells, His approach to the presidency as a form of “brand extension”— is borrowed directly from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign. Like a prize to be annexed to his personal empire rather than a semi- Reagan, Trump combines nostalgia for simpler, happier times priestly office—seems to desecrate the holy legacies of George along with the promise that even simpler and happier times are Washington and Abraham Lincoln. But it also gives Trump an just around the corner, if only we’ll stride forth to meet them. But authority and pomp mere politicians lack. His campaign visits there are differences, and they reflect changing times. Reagan was often begin in airport hangars, where he descends from his Boe- a cheerful salesman of the Cold War dogma when America saw ing 757, “Trump Force One,” as some call it. After closely compar- itself as the beacon of the “Free World.” Trump speaks of a nation ing the two planes, the Washington Post concluded that it’s more that keeps “losing” and promises lewd vengeance on an array of luxurious than the original. When Trump was weighing his pres- villains, real and inflated. Abroad there are swindling trade part- idential run back in 2013, local Republican leaders in New York, ners (China, Japan, Mexico); leering Islamic State terrorists who suggested he begin one rung below. “Our pitch was, if he runs for torture Americans and get away with it; slippery allies and client governor and makes it, he would be the presumptive front run- states that feast on American “loans” and drag us into their wars. ner,” one of the group recently told the New York Times. At home, things are no less bleak: stagnant wages and mounting There is one practical reason for Trump’s grand sweep towards debt for the middle class, even as the “one per cent” grow richer, the nomination. He knows more about television than any other and surging tides of immigrants, legal and undocumented alike, presidential candidate ever has. At its peak, his reality show steal jobs and soak up welfare benefits. Worse are the elites in both The Apprentice, first broadcast in 2004, drew 20m viewers a week, parties—multiculturalist snobs on the Democratic left, plutocrats exceeding all but the first two Republican debates in this (or any and “hedge fund guys” on the Republican right, who together previous) season. Time and again he has demonstrated mastery of the news cycle. First, he did the unthinkable, picking a fight with the right-leaning cable giant Fox News, the most potent force in
conservative media, after clashing with its popular host Megyn Sam Tanenhaus is an American writer. His next book Kelly in the first televised debate. Trump got the better of her and will be a biography of William F Buckley Jr her boss, Fox’s mogul Roger Ailes. Next he boycotted a debate 4 PROSPECT © TY WRIGHT/GETTY IMAGES © TY WRIGHT/GETTY
“Make America Great Again”: Trump’s slogan echoes Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign PROSPECT 5 © JOE MCNALLY/GETTY IMAGES © JOE MCNALLY/GETTY “Part Medici, part Kardashian”: Donald Trump relaxes at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut in August 1987
held just before the Iowa primary, which took place on 1st Febru- rivals were left gasping for minutes of it here and there. It’s all part ary, calculating that the network needs him at least as much as he of Trump’s invented but very American culture of “winning,” the needs it. Again, he was right. A Trump-less Fox would lose stand- bullying “art” of the deal he has promised to bring to high govern- ing with its audience. But Trump can take his act elsewhere— ance—whether in tough negotiations with Iran over the nuclear indeed anywhere he likes. All the networks covet the minutes he deal or with China over currency manipulation—and is now sharp- grants them—even letting him phone in “remotely,” though this violates long-standing practice. Trump’s Twitter provocations (one was a quotation from Mussolini) become news events. These “What is so crucial to improvisations have exposed the pretences of the traditional cam- paign, with its “high command” of consultants, pollsters and pol- Trump’s success, even icy advisors fussing over “battle plans” and “ground games.” within the Republican Party In Trumpworld, all flows directly from Trump himself, his impulses, his moods, his appetites, his ill-concealed grievances. is his almost total ditching He thrives in an atmosphere of permanent virality, of “pseudo- events” contrived to turn “boring” politics into “fun” spectacle, of conservatism as a though the fun lately has spilled over into danger. Trump lust- governing philosophy” ily taunts protestors at his large rallies, and has threatened them with beatings. The Friday before the most recent primaries, an advance contingent of Trump “fans” began trading punches with ening into a new style of campaign theatre. demonstrators at a large rally on the campus of a Chicago univer- And this clarifies Trump’s largest contribution in this election. sity. At the last minute the event was cancelled. Trump wouldn’t More than any other figure, including President Barack Obama, appear, the bewildered spectators were told—a decision reached Trump has liberated American politics from its stale ideologies. after conferring with Chicago police, Trump explained. But the He speaks of terrible problems that need to be fixed, of policy “dis- police said no such conversation took place. No matter. Images of asters” made by blundering, “stupid” leaders. But he never sounds the “riot” streamed on screens all weekend long, and Trump made like a politician. He has taken lately to calling himself a conserv- the rounds of talk shows congratulating himself on his statesman- ative, but says the word haltingly. His natural idiom is politics- like restraint, with the result that he gobbled up air time, while his neutral salesmanship—the “terrific” replacement he’ll devise for 6 PROSPECT
Obamacare, the landmark plan that guaranteed health benefits to to hope Trump might also break with Republican doctrine on previously uninsured people (“I want everyone to have coverage,” taxes and government spending. he has said); the colossal thousand-mile-long wall he says will seal But his policies, or the sketchy versions of them he has thus far off the Mexican border (and keep out immigrants) and which he presented, offer only tiny wrinkles of difference. Trump’s tax plan describes in luxury real-estate terms (“classy and beautiful too”). is a supply-side economist’s dream. It reduces federal revenue by almost $9.5 trillion over a decade and fattens the after-tax incomes t is silly but oddly liberating, or at least disinhibiting. Many of the super-rich by more than $1.3m per year. “Merry Christmas, have noted that Trump’s harshest blurtings are only more billionaires!” wrote Kevin Drum, a politics professor and blogger. extreme versions of the messages other Republicans have Trump’s healthcare “plan” is even flimsier. Pivoting from his been sending for years, though without their sanctimony— vow of universal coverage, he now would eliminate Obamacare Iwhether it is Cruz savouring the epithet “radical Islamic terror- without offering a plausible alternative for poorer familes apart ism” and then unctuously defending “religious liberty”; Senator from meaningless tax credits. When pressed by Rubio in a debate Marco Rubio (who has since ended his candidacy) changing his in March, Trump was unable to describe its main features. position on Syrian refugees with each new ripple of the political But most presidents—including the best of them—pin their winds, while also making sure to insert references to his immi- hopes, and invest their political capital, in a few big items, espe- grant grandparents; or the scout-masterish Kasich telling audi- cially in times, like these, of ideological stalemate. Obama’s ences “You’re made special. Did you know that?” Against all healthcare reform—his major achievement, despite the noises this, Trump’s coarse directness—his open contempt for immi- Trump and other Republicans make about reversing it—came grants and Muslims, his incredulous reaction to the Syrian crisis in his first term. Trump’s big themes, all related to his populist (“What’s our President doing? Is he insane?”)—offers the fresh- nationalism, are trade, immigration and an “America First” for- ness of emotional candour. When his fans praise him for speaking eign policy. the truth, they mean the truth they would speak if they could. He The US trade deficit with China reached almost $365bn in 2015. has given them a voice. And its rasp can be frightening. In this century, America has also lost three million jobs to China, The accusation made by Trump’s conservative rivals and three quarters of them in manufacturing—at the expense of the detractors—that he isn’t really one of them—is true. But he has working-class voters, long ignored by the Republican Party, but a recent Republican forebear, Patrick Buchanan, a speechwriter, now flocking to Trump (in some cases quitting the Democratic political strategist and television analyst, who twice ran for Pres- Party to do it). His case against China is aggressive. He says it ident, though again Trump has updated his model. Buchanan is manipulates its currency to improve trade and should be threat- best remembered for a martial oration at the 1992 Republican ened with a steep tariff of as much as 45 per cent. In 2010, Paul convention in which he called for a religious and cultural “war” Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York against modernity and its many evils: “abortion on demand... Times columnist, said much the same thing when he wrote urging homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, a “hardball policy” with China, including a 25 per cent “across- women in combat units.” The pestilences, with small adjustments, the-board” tariff. Since then China’s economy has been much have since become Republican orthodoxy. It is Cruz, not Trump, weakened. Current policy there, as in other countries, is to prop up who recites it, in a direct appeal to evangelicals. Yet—in perhaps its currency, not devalue it. Capital is now flowing into, not away the biggest surprise this season—those voters are now congregat- from, US markets. ing behind Trump, who is reaching them with a different religious Nevertheless, Trump’s pursuit of “fair trade”—with its enthusi- message, of faith in America as God’s country. asm for tariffs—is the same case the “democratic socialist” Bernie “What is so crucial to Trump’s success, even within the Repub- Sanders is making, and it’s taboo in a party that still reveres Mil- lican Party,” the columnist Michael Brendan Dougherty has writ- ton Friedman. It is also thoroughly consistent with Trump’s ten, “is his almost total ditching of conservatism as a governing promise to deport more than 11m undocumented immigrants philosophy.” The political theorist Michael Lind detects in Trump and seal off the border and with his approach to foreign policy, a “a classic populist of the right,” who has bottled the energies of nearly archaic “America First” nationalism, which emphasises a the Tea Party, that much-misunderstood movement. Contrary to strong military, distrust of alliances, and reluctance to intervene many accounts, “Tea Partiers are less upset about the size of gov- in foreign wars. For Trump, the businessman and deal-maker, the ernment,” Lind argues, than about its being used to help “other foreign threat is economic, not military. He seems to have thought people, especially immigrants and non-whites. They are for gov- this even at the peak of the Cold War. In September 1987, three ernment for them and against government for Not-Them.” months after Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear Not-Them includes not only “illegals” and “welfare cheats” down this wall” in Berlin, Trump paid nearly $100,000 to have an but also the idle rich. Trump shares the populist loathing of advertising letter published in three newspapers, identifying the “Wall Street socialism” and of fortunes built on financial instru- true adversary: allies living on the American dole. “It’s time for ments. “The hedge fund guys didn’t build this country,” he has us to end our vast deficits by making Japan and others who can said. “These are guys that shift paper around... they are paper- afford it pay,” Trump wrote. “Our world protection is worth hun- pushers. They make a fortune. They pay no tax. It’s ridiculous, dreds of billions of dollars to these countries and their stake in ok?” This heresy, together with Trump’s initial defences of the their protection is far greater than ours.” “safety net” of Social Security and Medicare (a programme that Nearly 30 years later, his foreign policy arguments still centre gives almost 50m Americans health insurance), his support for on money. China is one example. Another is his vociferous criti- Planned Parenthood (a non-profit organisation dedicated to cism of Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. What most galls Trump reproductive health services, including abortion), and his praise is not the possibility that Tehran will secretly build weapons but for “single payer” healthcare systems—where the state pays for all rather the $150bn in frozen assets released to Iran. Trump’s for- healthcare costs rather than private insurers—encouraged some eign policy, Thomas Wright pointed out in an article for Politico, PROSPECT 7 ©SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES OLSON/GETTY ©SCOTT A worker sweeps discarded Trump posters after a rally in Warren, Michigan, on 4th March
reproduces in almost every detail “19th-century high-tariff pro- ince then Trump has won time and again, in state upon tectionism and every-country-for-itself mercantilism.” state, in region after region. His nearest competitor, And it infuriates Trump’s most vehement conservative detrac- Cruz, has won just seven states. He could be denied the tors, the crusading hawks (neoconservatives) identified with the nomination, of course, but it will require a revolution Bush administration and its world-democratising dreams buried Sfrom above, his defeated rivals colluding with party chieftains, in the abattoirs of the Iraq war. In March, more than 100 members and it might offer the fascinating drama of a “brokered con- of the “Republican national security community” signed an “open vention” (see below)—machinations that the “direct primary” letter on Donald Trump,” declaring him unfit for the presidency. system was created to eliminate a century ago, when elections One of the signatories, Max Boot, the foreign policy journalist and had degenerated into backstairs conspiracy. Reviving that Dark adviser to Rubio, has said: “I would sooner vote for Joseph Stalin Age would kindle new accusations—fodder for Trump’s Twitter than Donald Trump.” He has instead said he’ll vote for Hillary feed, for his speeches and many television appearances—that Clinton. Not quite a vote for Stalin, but pretty close, in the eyes “his people” have been betrayed once more by “establishment” of today’s Republicans. Neoconservatives dislike Trump for many bosses who had been ignoring them for years until at last he led reasons, but especially for his 2008 assertion that George W Bush them in a peasants’ revolt in primaries and caucuses, in open-air should have been impeached for leading the nation into the Iraq rallies, not to mention in the campaign offices where they have war. Trump elaborated on this during the South Carolina pri- volunteered their time, with a devotion to democracy the party’s mary. “They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruc- “wise men” seem not to share. “We know who Donald Trump is,” tion. There were none, and they knew there were none.” Many a Trump supporter told Rush Limbaugh, the king of conserva- Americans agree. But it was a reckless charge in a state that has a tive talk radio king, “and we’re going to use Donald Trump to handful of military bases, a large boon to its economy—$19bn and either take over the GOP or blow it up.” With each passing day, 150,000 jobs—and remains a bastion of Bush-love. Yet Trump eas- and every new attempt to stop him, the strange crusade contin- ily won the South Carolina primary a week later, finishing off the ues. The television showman stands, improbably, on the thresh- candidacy of Bush’s brother, Jeb. old of history. 8 PROSPECT Growing pains The extraordinary technical innovations of the past century are unlikely to be repeated robert j gordon
n the century after the end of the Civil War, life in the goes against the theory of economic growth as it has evolved over United States changed beyond recognition. There was the last 60 years. Growth theory features an economy operating a revolution—an economic, rather than a political one— in a “steady state” in which a continuing inflow of new ideas and which freed people from an unremitting daily grind technologies creates opportunities for investment. of manual labour and household drudgery and a life of But this model does not apply to most of human history. darkness,I isolation and early death. By the 1970s, many manual, According to Angus Maddison, the great historian of economic outdoor jobs had been replaced by work in air-conditioned envi- growth, the annual rate of growth in the western world from AD ronments, housework was increasingly performed by machines, 1 to AD 1820 was a mere 0.06 per cent per year, or 6 per cent per darkness was replaced by electric light, and isolation was replaced century. Or, as summed up by the economic commentator Steven not only by travel, but also by colour television, which brought the Landsburg: “Modern humans first emerged about 100,000 years world into the living room. Most importantly, a newborn infant ago. For the next 99,800 years or so, nothing happened. Well, not could expect to live not to the age of 45, but to 72. This economic quite nothing. There were wars, political intrigue, the invention of revolution was unique—and unrepeatable, because so many of its agriculture—but none of that stuff had much effect on the quality achievements could happen only once. of people’s lives. Almost everyone lived on the modern equivalent Economic growth is not a steady process that occurs at a reg- of $400 to $600 a year, just above the subsistence level… Then— ular pace. Instead, progress is much more rapid at certain times. just a couple of hundred years ago—people started getting richer. There was virtually no economic growth for millennia until 1770, And richer and richer still.” only slow growth in the transitional century before 1870, remar The designation of a “special century” applies only to the US, kably rapid growth in the century ending in 1970, and slower which has carved out the technological frontier for developed growth since then. My thesis is that some inventions are more nations since the Civil War. However, other countries have also important than others, and America’s growth in the century after made stupendous progress. Western Europe and Japan largely the Civil War was made possible by a clustering, in the late 19th caught up to the US in the second half of the 20th century, and century, of what I call the “Great Inventions.” China and other emerging nations are well on their way. Since 1970, economic growth has been dazzling and disappoint- Progress did not suddenly begin in 1870, but the US Civil War ing. This apparent paradox is resolved when we recognise that (1861-65) provides a sharp historical marker. The first Census of recent advances have mostly occurred in a narrow sphere of activ- Manufacturing was carried out in 1869; coincidentally, that year ity having to do with entertainment, communications and the col- brought the nation together in a real sense, when the transconti- lection and processing of information. For the rest of what humans nental railroad was joined at Promontory Summit in Utah. care about—food, clothing, shelter, transportation, health and Our starting point of 1870 should not be taken to diminish the working conditions both inside and outside the home—progress progress made in the previous half century. A child born in 1820 has slowed since 1970, both qualitatively and quantitatively. entered a world that was almost medieval: lit by candlelight, in Our best guide to the pace of innovation and technological pro- which folk remedies treated health problems and travel was no gress is total factor productivity, a measure of how quickly out- faster than hoof or sail. Three great inventions of that half cen- put is growing relative to the growth of labour and capital inputs. tury—the railroad, steamship, and telegraph—set the stage for Since 1970, that has grown at barely a third the rate achieved more rapid progress. The Civil War showcased these advances between 1920 and 1970. My chronicle of the American standard when northern trains sped Yankee troops to the front and steam- of living rests heavily on the history of innovations. But any con- ships blockaded supplies to the South. During the War of 1812, sideration of the future must look beyond innovation to contem- news still travelled so slowly that the Battle of New Orleans was plate the headwinds that are slowing the vessel of progress. Chief fought three weeks after a treaty had been signed to end that war. among these is the rise of inequality, which since 1970 has steadily But by the time of the Civil War, daily newspapers published the directed an ever larger share of the spoils of the growth machine outcomes of battles mere hours after they occurred. to the top of the income distribution. Let’s identify those aspects of the post-1870 economic revolu- The idea that a single 100-year period, the “special century,” tion that make it impossible to repeat. We are so used to our crea- was more important to economic progress than any other so far, ture comforts that we forget how recently they were achieved. In 1870, rural and urban working-class Americans bathed in a large tub in the kitchen after carrying water from outside in pails and Robert J Gordon is the Stanley G Harris Professor warming it over an open hearth. All this was such a nuisance that in the Social Sciences at Northwestern University. This article is an edited extract from “The Rise and some people bathed once a month. Similarly, heating in every Fall of American Growth: The US Standard of Living room was once a distant dream—yet it became a daily reality in since the Civil War” (Princeton University Press) the decades between 1890 and 1940. PROSPECT 9 © RADIUS IMAGES / ALAMY© RADIUS IMAGES STOCK PHOTO
Silicon Valley, where many believe that “software is eating the world.” But have we, as Robert Gordon argues, already had the best of the revolution? 10 PROSPECT
The flood of inventions that followed the Civil War transformed that were barely known a century earlier, including the two-day life. When electricity made illumination possible with the flick of weekend and retirement. a switch, the process of creating light was changed forever. When Thanks to these irreversible changes, in the half century after lifts allowed buildings to extend vertically instead of horizontally, the Civil War America changed from an agrarian society of loosely the nature of land use was changed, and urban density was cre- linked small towns to an increasingly urban and industrial soci- ated. When small electric machines replaced huge, heavy steam ety with stronger private and governmental institutions and an boilers, the scope for replacing human labour with machines increasingly diverse population. The urban percentage of the pop- broadened beyond recognition. ulation, defined as those living in organised governmental units So it was with transport. When cars and other motorised vehi- with a population of 2,500 or more, grew from 24.9 per cent in cles replaced horses, the quarter of agricultural land devoted to 1870 to 73.7 per cent in 1970. feeding those animals was freed up. Progress in transport has The importance of the Great Inventions was on display in the been stunning; it took little more than a century from the first aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, a freakishly powerful storm that primitive railroads which began replacing the stagecoach in the devastated much of New York City and the coast of New Jersey in 1830s to the Boeing 707 flying near the speed of sound in 1958. October 2012. Sandy pushed many of its victims back to the 19th The transition of the food supply from medieval to modern also century. Residents of New York City below 34th Street learned occurred during this century. The Mason jar, invented in 1859, what it was like to lose the lifts that carried them to and from their made it possible to preserve food at home. The first canned meats apartments. Not only was vertical movement impeded, but the were fed to Northern troops in the Civil War, and during the late flooding of the subways, along with the blackout, eliminated the 19th century a vast array of processed foods, from Kellogg’s corn- primary means of horizontal movement as well. Anyone without flakes and Borden’s condensed milk to Jell-O, entered American electricity also lost such modern inventions as lighting, air-condi- homes. Clarence Birdseye invented a method for freezing food in tioning and fans for ventilation, and refrigerators and freezers to 1916, although it took until the 1950s before people had domes- keep food from spoiling. Many residents had no heat, no hot food, tic freezers. In 1870, shoes and men’s clothing were bought from and no running water. Those living in New Jersey were often una- shops but women’s clothing was made at home, and the sewing ble to drive as petrol station pumps could not function without machine had only recently reached the mass market. By the 1920s, electricity. Moreover, communication was shut off after batteries most women’s clothing was bought from retail outlets that did not were drained on laptops and mobile phones. exist in 1870—namely, the great urban department stores and, for rural customers, mail-order catalogues. o, what has happened since the special century ended Some measures of progress are subjective, but life expectancy in 1970? First, with a few notable exceptions, the and the conquest of infant mortality are quantitative indicators of pace of innovation has slowed. Second, rising ine- the advances made in medicine and public health. Public water- quality meant that the fruits of innovation are no works not only revolutionised the daily routine of the housewife Slonger shared equally: those at the top of the income distri- but also protected every family against waterborne diseases. The bution continue to prosper, but a shrinking share of the eco- development of anaesthetics in the late 19th century made the nomic pie makes its way to the Americans in the middle and gruesome pain of surgery a thing of the past, and the invention of bottom of the income distribution. antiseptics cleaned up the squalor of hospitals. Progress has been focused more narrowly in the areas of enter- This century was unique not only in the magnitude of its tran- tainment, communications and information technology. In these sitions but also the speed with which they were completed. Not a areas, change does not arrive in a great and sudden burst, as it did single American household was wired for electricity in 1880. By with the by-products of the Great Inventions, but it is evolutionary 1940, nearly 100 per cent of US urban homes were wired, and 94 and continuous. For instance, the advent of television in the late per cent had water and sewer pipes, more than 80 per cent had 1940s and early 1950s caused attendance in cinemas to plummet— interior flush toilets, 73 per cent had gas for heating and cooking, but movies did not disappear. Instead, they increasingly became 58 per cent had central heating, and 56 per cent had refrigerators. a central element of television programming, especially with the In short, the 1870 house was isolated from the rest of the world, advent of cable television. Similarly, television did not make radio but most 1940 houses were “networked,” having the five connec- obsolete but rather shifted the radio from being the centrepiece tions of electricity, gas, telephone, water and sewage. of living room furniture into a small and portable device, most The “networked” house, together with modern appliances, often listened to in the car. Nothing has appeared to make tele changed the nature of housework. Women no longer had to devote vision obsolete; instead, its technical aspects have become ever long hours to doing laundry on a scrub board, making and mend- better, with huge, flat, high-definition screens becoming standard. ing clothing, and baking and preserving food, paving the way for Landline telephones dominated communications from their their participation in the workforce. The improvement in work- invention in 1876 to the breakup of the Bell telephone monopoly ing conditions for men was even more profound. In 1870, more in 1983. Since then, mobile phones have prompted an increasing than half of men were engaged in farming, either as proprietors share of households to abandon landlines. Information technol- or as farm labourers. Their hours were long and hard; they were ogy and the communication it enables have seen much faster pro- exposed to heat in the summer and cold in the winter, and the gress since 1970. The transition from the mainframe computer fruits of their labour were at the mercy of droughts, floods and of the 1960s and 1970s to the personal computer of the 1980s to insect infestations. Working-class jobs in cities required 10 hours the web-enabled PC of the 1990s to smartphones and tablets of of work per day, including Saturdays. More than half of teenage recent years represents the fastest transition of all—but, again, boys were in work, and male heads of households worked until this applies to a limited sphere of experience. Total business and they were disabled or dead. But by 1970, the whole concept of household spending on all electronic entertainment, communica- time had changed, including the introduction of blocks of time tions and IT (including purchases of TV and audio equipment PROSPECT 11 and mobile phone service plans) amounted to only about 7 per for the standard of living, productivity, and hours worked per per- cent of US gross domestic product in 2014. son from 1870, divided at 1920 and 1970. For each of the three peri- Outside the spheres of entertainment, communications and ods there are three bars, each depicting the average annual growth IT, progress was much slower after 1970. The major changes in rate over the respective interval. The left (orange) bar in each food have involved much greater variety, especially of ethnic food group shows the growth rate of per-person real GDP, the middle specialties and out-of-season and organic produce. There has been (blue) bar growth in real GDP per hour (that is, labour productiv- no appreciable change in clothing other than in styles and coun- ity), and the third (red) bar growth in hours worked per person. There are two striking aspects to this data. The first is the symmetry of the graph: the first and last periods are almost “Air travel is less comfortable identical in the height of each bar, but the middle period (1920– than before, making the 70) is quite different. Output per person growth is substantially higher in the middle period, and productivity growth is much experience more time- higher—2.8 per cent per year compared to 1.8 per cent in the first period and 1.7 per cent in the last period. The much greater consuming and stressful” excess of productivity growth over output per person in the mid- dle period, compared to that in the first and last periods, reflects tries of origin; imports of clothing have caused an almost complete the sharp decline in hours worked per person between 1920 and shutdown of the domestic US apparel industry. The microwave 1970. This raises two questions: why did hours worked per per- oven has been the only post-1970 kitchen appliance to have a sig- son decline so rapidly in the middle interval? And, did rapid pro- nificant impact. Cars and trucks accomplish the same role of ductivity growth cause hours to decline, or did the decline in transporting people and cargo as they did, albeit with greater con- hours worked per person in some way contribute to relatively venience and safety. Air travel is less comfortable than before, with rapid productivity growth? seating configurations and increased security making the experi- The decline in hours worked per person from 1920 to 1970 ence more time-consuming and stressful. reflects numerous factors that all point in the same direction. First America’s achievements since 1970 have been matched by was the long-run decline in hours of work per week for production most developed nations, but in one important regard the US fell workers, which by 1920 had already declined from 60 to 52 hours behind, struggling with its healthcare system. Compared to Can- per week. Second was the influence of New Deal legislation, both ada, Japan, or western Europe, the US combines by far the most in reducing hours directly and also in empowering labour unions expensive system with the shortest life expectancy. Progress in that fought for and achieved the eight-hour workday and 40-hour medicine has also slowed compared to the great advances made work week by the end of the 1930s. between 1940 and 1970, which witnessed the invention of antibi- An unrelated factor was the baby boom of 1947 to 1964, otics, the development of procedures for treating and preventing coronary artery disease, and the discovery of radiation and chem- otherapy, still used as standard treatments for cancer. Can we quantitatively measure the changes in American soci- ety since the special century began? Shown in figure 1 are the data Phones for all—the revolution in our hands © TIM ROOKE/REX SHUTTERSTOCK © TIM ROOKE/REX 12 PROSPECT
which increased the child population Figure . Ann alised growth rate of o t t (those aged 0 to 16) relative to the work- ing-age population (16 to 64) and thus 2.82 Per person reduced the ratio of hours worked to the Per hour total population. The reverse feedback 2.41 from productivity growth to shrinking Hours per person hours reflects the standard view in labour 1.84 1.79 1.77 economics that as real income rises, indi- 1.62 viduals choose not to spend their extra income on goods and services, but rather opt for extra leisure—that is, by working fewer hours. The change in hours worked per per- 0.15 son in the first period (1870–1920) was 0.05 negligible and presumably reflects mod- est declines in the working week for urban manual workers, offset by the effects of –0.41 shifting employment from farms to cit- ies, where working hours were longer and more regimented. The slight increase in The Rise and Fall of American Growth: hours worked per person after 1970 mixes The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War two quite different trends. In the first por- tion of the interval, roughly between 1970 and 1995, hours worked ductivity growth in the early 1920s associated with the electrifica- per person rose as a reflection of the movement of women from tion of manufacturing. He attributed the delayed impact not just housework into market employment. Then, after 1996, hours to the time needed to invent and perfect the machinery, but also worked per person fell as a result of a steady decline in the labour to a sharp decline in the price of electricity itself. force participation rate of prime-age males and of young people. David’s analogy turned out to be prophetic, for only a few years After 2008, these labour force dropouts were joined by the retire- after his 1990 article, the growth rate of aggregate US productiv- ment of the older members of the baby boom generation. ity soared from 1996 to 2004 to roughly double the rate it had been Why did labour productivity grow so much more quickly from 1972 to 1996. However, after 2004, when growth in labour between 1920 and 1970 than before or after? We can divide the productivity stopped its eight-year surge, despite the proliferation sources of the growth in labour productivity into three compo- of flat-screen desktop computers, laptops, and smartphones in the nents, as shown in figure 2. The time intervals are the same as decade after 2004. By way of contrast, in the 1920s, electricity’s before, except that the absence of some data requires us to start stimulation of industrial efficiency lasted much longer than eight at 1890 rather than 1870. Each bar is divided into three parts. The years. Productivity growth soared in the late 1930s and into the top section, displayed in red, is the contribution to productivity 1940s, creating the remarkable average 1920-70 growth rate dis- growth of rising educational attainment; these are the widely played in figure 2. accepted estimates of Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz. The We might conclude that the electricity revolution was more middle section, shaded in blue, displays the effect of the stead- important than the computer revolution. Moreover, the produc- ily rising amount of capital input per worker hour; a continu- tivity upsurge after 1920 did not rely only on electricity, but also ing source of rising labour productivity is the larger quantity of on the internal combustion engine. It is not surprising that motor capital, of increasingly better quality, with which each worker is vehicles had little impact on labour productivity or total factor equipped. The effect of a rising ratio of capital input to labour productivity growth before 1920, for they had come into existence hours is usually called “capital deepening.” only a short time before. There were only 8,000 registered motor vehicles in 1900, yet there were 26.8m just three decades later, ur designation of the “special century” appears to con- when the ratio of motor vehicles to the number of US households flict with the behaviour of total factor productivity reached 89.2 per cent. Productivity in the aggregate economy growth as summarised in figure 1. Apparently only the depends in part on how quickly workers, including truck drivers second half of that period exhibited growth that was and delivery personnel, can move from place to place. Just as the Osubstantially above average. We can state this puzzle in two sym- thousands of lifts installed in the building boom of the 1920s facil- metric ways: why was total factor productivity growth so slow itated vertical travel and urban density, so the growing number before 1920? Why was it so fast during the 50 years after 1920? of cars and trucks speeded horizontal movement on farms and in The leading hypothesis was put forward by Paul David, who the city. provided an analogy between the evolution of electric machinery Knowing what we do about the past, what can we extrapolate and of the electronic computer. In 1987, Robert Solow quipped, to the future? We cannot predict every new invention; indeed, “We can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity even for those on the horizon, such as driverless cars and legions statistics.” David responded, in effect: “Just wait,” implying there of small robots, their likely effect and importance is a matter for could be a long gestation period between a major invention and debate. But there is much that we can predict. For instance, the its payoff in productivity growth. David counted almost four dec- baby boom generation is currently aged between 50 and 68, so ades between Thomas Edison’s opening of the Pearl Street power we can predict with reasonable accuracy the effect of its mem- plant in Manhattan in 1882 and the subsequent upsurge of pro- bers’ retirement within a percentage point or two, depending on PROSPECT 13
Figure 2. Average ann al growth of o t t er ho r and its com onents ately to the top income brackets. My predictions that future growth will 2.82 be slower than in the past are strongly resisted by a group of commentators whom I call the “techno-optimists.” They tend to ignore the slow productivity growth of the past decade. Instead, they 1.62 1.5 predict a future of spectacularly faster productivity growth based on an expo- nential increase in the capabilities of arti- ficial intelligence.