Joseph Stiglitz Asks Whether America Is Witnessing The End Of Progress?

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Joseph Stiglitz has been a full professor of economics at Columbia College since 2003. He acquired the Nobel Memorial Prize in Financial Sciences in 2001 and has served because the chief economist for the World Financial institution and chair of the US Council of Financial Advisers. He’s a prolific writer and has written two books that must be on everybody’s studying record — Globalization And Its Discontents in 2002 and Globalization And It Discontents Revisited: Anti Globalization In The Era Of Trump in 2017.

On January 21, 2025, Project Syndicate printed an essay by Stiglitz that started with this thesis assertion: “Though the United States has long led the world in advancing basic science and technology, it is hard to see how this can continue under President Donald Trump and the country’s ascendant oligarchy. America’s rejection of Enlightenment values will have dire consequences.”

Stiglitz is a scholar of historical past from an historic perspective and recollects how Francis Fukuyama known as the second when the Berlin Wall was demolished the “end of history” and predicted that each one societies would finally converge towards liberal democracy and market economies. It was assumed that progress towards a simply, inclusive international society would proceed into the foreseeable future. “But we should remember that living standards 250 years ago were little different from what they were 2,500 years ago. Not until the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution did we achieve the enormous improvements in life expectancy, health, and living standards that have defined modernity,” Stiglitz writes.

“Enlightenment thinkers acknowledged that scientific experimentation and tinkering may assist folks perceive nature and create new, transformative applied sciences; and that the social sciences may allow nearer coordination in efforts to enhance circumstances for all members of society. Such efforts required the rule of regulation to displace absolutism, respect for reality to prevail over obscurantism, and the elevation of experience in human affairs. Among the many most annoying options of the MAGA revolution is its outright rejection of those values.

“Can progress continue? Just as the Soviets managed to launch Sputnik, we may see Trump and his followers preside over notable technological feats in space and artificial intelligence. But can we really expect America’s new oligarchy to oversee sustained, widely shared advances? Those in power now are driven wholly by the pursuit of wealth, and they have no reservations about accumulating it through exploitation and rent-seeking. They have already demonstrated their ingenuity in wielding market power and leveraging media and technology platforms to advance their private interests through widespread manipulation and disinformation.”

The distinction right this moment, he says, is the “sheer scale and brazenness” of the corruption going down in America actually by the hour, with new horrors piled upon yesterday’s horrors in a marketing campaign of shock and awe designed to stifle all objections. Because of the disastrous Citizens United determination by the US Supreme Courtroom handed down 15 years in the past, “American oligarchs can openly ‘contribute’ hundreds of millions of dollars to a politician’s election campaign in exchange for favors. The $465 million no strings attached loan that Tesla received from President Barack Obama’s administration 15 years ago will look like a pittance compared to what is coming down the pike.” The Residents United determination makes it clear simply how long these advocating for the destruction of an America based mostly on constitutional rules have been plotting their conquest.

“Progress requires investments in fundamental science and an informed labor pressure. But throughout his first time period, Trump proposed such huge cuts in funding for analysis that even his fellow Republicans balked. Will they present the identical willingness to withstand him this time? In any case, is progress nonetheless attainable when the establishments liable for the development and transmission of data are below fixed assault? The MAGA motion would really like nothing greater than to tear down the ‘elite’ establishments the place a lot cutting-edge analysis happens.

“No country can truly prosper if large portions of the population suffer from deficiencies in education, health, and nutritious food. In America, around 16% of children grow up in poverty, overall performance in international educational assessments is mediocre, malnutrition and homelessness have become pervasive, and life expectancy is the lowest of any major advanced economy. The only remedy is more and better public spending. Yet Trump and his team of oligarchs are committed to cutting the budget as much as they can. Doing so would leave the United States even more dependent on foreign labor. But immigrants, even highly skilled ones, are anathema to Trump’s MAGA followers.”

Stiglitz Sees Three Eventualities

1. The US lastly involves phrases with its deep-seated issues, rejects the MAGA motion, and reaffirms its dedication to Enlightenment values.

2. The US and China proceed down the street to oligarchic capitalism and authoritarian state capitalism, respectively, with the remainder of the world lagging behind.

3. The US and China keep on their course, however Europe takes up the banner of progressive capitalism and social democracy.

Stiglitz thinks the second situation is most certainly, which suggests we should contemplate how lengthy America’s rising deficiencies will stay manageable. As a result of China has huge benefits in creating know-how and AI, thanks partly to its dedication to long-term planning. As well as, its diplomacy with non-western international locations has been extra profitable than America’s. But neither China nor a Trumpian America is dedicated to the values which have pushed progress for the reason that late 18th century.

“Tragically, humanity is already grappling with existential challenges. Advances in know-how have given us the means to destroy ourselves, and the easiest way to forestall that’s by way of worldwide regulation. Along with the threats posed by local weather change and pandemics, now we even have to fret about unregulated AI. Some will counter that whereas there could also be a pause in progress, previous investments in fundamental science will proceed to yield worthwhile returns. Moreover, the optimists would possibly add, each dictatorship finally ends, and historical past strikes on. A century in the past, fascism engulfed the world, however that led to a wave of democratization, with decolonization and civil-rights actions countering racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination.

“The problem is that those successful movements went only so far, and time is not on our side. Climate change will not wait for us to get our act together. Will Americans enjoy continued progress in the form of shared prosperity, based on education, health, safety, community, and a clean environment? I doubt it. And will the end of progress in America have knock-on effects globally? Almost surely. It is too soon to know what the full consequences of Trump’s second presidency will be. History does indeed move on; but it could leave progress behind,” Stiglitz writes.

He’s not the one one who sees the political occasions of right this moment as a large step backwards, not simply to fascism however all the best way again to feudal instances when monarchs and their sycophants had been absolute masters of their domains. Vassals in England who gathered wooden for fires to maintain themselves heat or plucked an apple to eat as a result of they had been hungry had been branded as criminals for stealing from the king.

Stiglitz can see where this is heading because the folks bow and pray to the Orange God they made. He believes this won’t finish nicely for the battle to protect the Earth as a spot that helps human life for any however the wealthiest. For some purpose, persons are cheering the destruction of liberal society and intentionally turning their backs on the tenets of John Locke, whose concepts had been central to the considering of the those that wrote the US Structure. The framers did the very best they may to create a system of checks and balances, however by no means anticipated that one group of tremendous rich folks would smash that system and depart America defenseless in opposition to the onslaught of what Steve Bannon calls “technofeudalism.”

The very concept of America is now aflame and plenty of are cheering the inferno. To paraphrase a thought from greater than a century in the past, “The lamps are going out all across America. We shall never see them again in our lifetime.”