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2016 Postmortem

In reply to the discussion: Dear Hillary Supporters [View all]

kristopher

(29,798 posts)
9. This is also a response to brooklynite
Sun Oct 25, 2015, 05:57 PM
Oct 2015

A single vote on a republican tax plan in 2001 isn't really a way to define a pattern of thinking about issues IMO. It has meaning, but like the calls for controlling Wall Street commencing after the meltdown was underway, for me that meaning seems to reside in the way those are exceptions to what I see as a general set of beliefs forming a philosophy embracing what I'll call the "GM standard".

It has been used by others so GM is only an example but I remember it as a saying that "What is good for GM is good for America".

To a degree that statement is true - when our corporations do well it DOES provide the potential for everyone to do well. So, we do indeed need to pay attention to that "political economy" (a term from anthropology, not a slight towards HRC) and ensure external trade and defense issues are not neglected. However, in doing so we also need to be mindful of the fact that the ultimate purpose of any economic endeavor in a democratic country is to provide for the needs of the greater populace. When we place primacy on the political economy and neglect the "domestic economy' (another term from anthro best summarized as the 'bread and butter' issues) we have the state we are now in.

What I see with Hillary is a good faith belief that placing primacy on the political economy will automatically take care of the domestic economy over time. Some people call that 'trickle down economics'.

I don't think there can be any question that Bernie's economic vision focuses (perhaps too much I don't know) on the primacy of the domestic economy. If pursued relentlessly and mindlessly it would of course be at the expense of the political economy, resulting in a system that is as dysfunctional as the one we now have, but in the other direction.


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