The economic crisis is now less of an ongoing catastrophe than the eerie calm that follows one.
For this generation, especially, the question isn’t how we will get by for the next few weeks — although often that is a concern — but where we will be in five years, or 10.
It seems increasingly clear that minor adjustments won’t do, and that this should be a time for answers, not dogma.
On one hand, it seems clear that the government won’t be able to cut its way out of this crisis.
On the other hand, further spending on social programs alone will only compound the problem.
One prescription, recently endorsed by The New America Foundation in a white paper authored by three experts, including well-known economist Nouriel Roubini, calls for an unprecedented investment in infrastructure.
This is not because we can’t think of any other way to make jobs, but because our future competitiveness may depend on it.
This prescription has glaring political weaknesses — a Congress that reels at the suggestion of spending on anything that smacks of make-work stimulus, massive upfront costs, no natural constituency for infrastructure spending, to name a few.
Roubini and others argue that this is a prime moment, however, for several reasons.
One is that the legions of out-of-work young people might jump at the chance to work on a national broadband project, or a refurbishing of state and municipal power grids, or on futurizing our air and freight systems.
Labor costs would be lower than usual, and so would equipment and borrowing costs.
Another is that large-scale projects — projects that Americans can see — could have a galvanizing effect on the economy.
We rank No. 16 in infrastructure quality, according to a World Economic Forum report, and a more efficient country would be a more productive country.
Another prescription is to rethink the incentives at work in the economy. The problem isn’t, as many believe, that Wall Street is under-regulated. It’s that small businesses are regulated too much.
It’s that the economy isn’t as accessible as it should be. It’s that barriers exist at every stage of the small capitalist process, and that many would-be entrepreneurs are daunted by the disincentives to start a business, or to hire more employees, or to expand operations and make more money doing so.
The problem isn’t, as G.K. Chesterton once remarked, “That there are too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.”
Could government make it more rewarding for large corporations to partner with small capitalists? Could tax policy encourage entrepreneurship at the community level?
Could non-traditional educational models like charter schools begin to plot out how to teach students, not for college and getting an existing job, but for examining trends and creating their own?
Global competitiveness is a hobbyhorse of the elite class. Our corporations are global. Our great cities are beacons to the businesses of the world.
None of this should change. But it’s not insane to think that a capitalism of community — where you have a business, and so do all your neighbors — might balance us again.
There’s a significant re-settling underway in the American economy. Everyone sees it, but no one knows exactly where it might lead.
But if, in 10 years, our infrastructure is once again the envy of the world, and the American economy is once again the easiest to enter, perhaps these lean years will have been for the best.
Reach the columnist at wmunsil@asu.edu.
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