How much has the Biden Administration shifted away from neoliberal economic dogma?
Historian Bob McElvaine has a provocative and thoughtful essay from January on Joe Biden at the halfway point of his first Presidential term, “It's Time to Recognize Biden as a Great President.”1 Well worth reading.
One accomplishment that Biden hasn't emphasized much was his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. A long-overdue recognition of reality. He's also quietly been cutting back the ill-begotten drone assassination program - which, for what it's worth, has been a series of military attacks that, though on a smaller scale, have been every bit as much illegal aggression as Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Of course, I'm "old enough to remember" when even Republican President and Nixon-crime-enabler Jerry Ford banned assassinations. But, still...
The Rescue Plan, the infrastructure bill, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) really did provide a major stimulus that make good economic sense. And in the 2022 election, we saw what was once commonly assumed happen: unemployment was exceptionally low, and it benefitted the Presidential party. Of course, abortion rights also turned out to be a potent "coffee-table" issue, as well.
Something the usual suspects in the punditariat don't seem to have picked up on very well is what the green-new-deal subsidies in the IRA mean. Emmanuel Macron has called for the EU to adopt similar green subsidies - even though those are considered "anti-competitive" under the current globalization assumptions. That's an example of the kind of "industrial policy" Democratic progressive advocated in the 1980s but Republican derided as "the gubment picking winners and losers in the economy."
And John Bateman of the Carnegie Endowment wrote last about how Biden's trade sanctions against China actually look much more aggressive than most people realize.2 A New Cold War against China, of course, has big risks of its own. But what Biden has done in both those cases is to land big hits on the neoliberal economic doctrines that have dominated US and European economic policies for decades. (I can't quite believe I'm saying that, but that's sure how it looks at the moment.)
In a more recent evaluation, economist Adam Tooze looks at the quantitative impact of Biden’s policies and expresses cautious optimism that it is a turn in the right direction, i.e., away from the dominant neoliberal dogmas.
It seems likely that 2022 will come to be seen as an important turning point in the history of the American energy transition. But whilst acknowledging this, it is important to be realistic about the quantitative scale of what is going on and above all to be realistic about its likely short-run impact on American society and thus on its politics.
This is worth saying because the Biden administration sees its new industrial policy as three-pronged. It is designed to address the climate crisis, the challenge of Chinese competition and the inequality and divisions within society that have undermined American democracy. It may be good politics to talk up this ambition. They would no doubt have done more, if Congressional majorities had enabled them to do so.
At the very least the Biden team can claim that they see the problems and have attempted creatively to respond to them. In terms of political messaging that may be enough. Let us hope so. For my part I’m reminded of that phrase that Obama’s Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner used to me in describing the challenge facing America’s liberal governing class. Theirs, he remarked, is an exercise in defying gravity.3 [my emphasis]
It’s important to remember, however, that Biden’s completely unnecessary compromise with the Republican wreckers over the ridiculous and blatantly unconstitutional debt ceiling was a clear step away from the solid and destructive trend discussed here. Including the very un-green gift to coal baron Joe Manchin, the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
McElvaine, Robert (2023):It's Time to Recognize Biden as a Great President 01/20/2023. Substack. <https://substack.com/inbox/post/97962236> (Accessed 21.01.2023).
Bateman, John (2023): Biden Is Now All-In on Taking Out China. Foreign Policy 10/12/2022. <https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/12/biden-china-semiconductor-chips-exports-decouple/> (Accessed: 2023-21-06).
Tooze, Adam (2023): Chartbook 220 Biden's "new industrial policy": Revolution in the making, or an exercise in defying gravity? AT/Substack 06/14/2023. <> (Accessed: 2023-21-06). Paragraph breaks added.