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Utopia or Bust — Brad DeLong

Summary:
What's next. Brad DeLong makes some observations and poses some questions. He suggests that the answers the future will provide are dialectical, that is, an attempt to deal with the various facets these questions suggest. The outcomes, yet to be determined, will be the results of political struggles.It is a usual piece to provoke thinking but it is too short and summary to include all the relevant factors. After all, the world system is a complex adaptive system with many gears and these issues are, as hie points out, age-old. They now appear in a new form.Where I think he is right is in saying to forget the utopian thinking. We are back to the old slog, arguing over production-distribution-consumption based on self-interest. What is needed to break out of this endless cycle is a rise in

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What's next. Brad DeLong makes some observations and poses some questions. He suggests that the answers the future will provide are dialectical, that is, an attempt to deal with the various facets these questions suggest. The outcomes, yet to be determined, will be the results of political struggles.

It is a usual piece to provoke thinking but it is too short and summary to include all the relevant factors. After all, the world system is a complex adaptive system with many gears and these issues are, as hie points out, age-old. They now appear in a new form.

Where I think he is right is in saying to forget the utopian thinking. We are back to the old slog, arguing over production-distribution-consumption based on self-interest. What is needed to break out of this endless cycle is a rise in collective consciousness at the individual level sufficient to raise the quality of the culture and various institutions, here especially those that sit on the commanding heights of the world economy.

This is what the US-led "rules-based order" for organizing the world system is advertised as providing, but under it the increase of inequality of income and wealth has gone exponential. De-globalization in response is not unexpected.
 
Project Syndicate
Utopia or Bust
Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley
Mike Norman
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.

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