This appeared in Spanish, in the magazine Capital, I believe in October. I submitted it early last September and it offers my predictions about an Obama administration to come, as an American might try to explain to a Spaniard. Of course I drew on many web and blog influences but this was a citation-free medium. Here goes, under the fold:
Barack Obama has grown into a small industry. Some people are convinced
that he is a radical left-winger, while others claim he absorbed free
market economics during his time as a law professor at the University
of Chicago. Obama’s voting record in the Senate is left-wing, but
since he’s been planning on pursuing the Presidency for years, maybe
those votes were for public consumption.
My view of Obama’s economics is
straightforward one and it is consistent with his public
pronouncements. I view Barack Obama as an economic pragmatist who is
willing to borrow good ideas from many different sources. He stands
further to the left than do most Americans (myself included) but he has
lined up the very best centrist economic talent to advise him.
What’s
the reason for thinking that Obama is such a pragmatist? If you read’s
Obama first memoir (Dreams from My Father: A Memoir of Race and Inheritance),
which he wrote before he was famous, issues of identity dominate He is
acutely aware of being a mixed-race person in a community of largely
white American leaders. Most of all, I think Obama wants to do a good
job as President and he wants to be seen as having done a good job. That
would pave the way for improved race relations and, although Obama
would not use these words, it would bring higher status to
African-Americans. When it comes to his
subconscious, I see Obama as more attached to the notion of
excelling than to any particular view of economic policy. Keep in mind
that Obama was raised by a white mother (the father was absent) and he
“decided to be black,” and decided to marry a black woman and attend a
black church, only later in his life. Oddly, his hopes for improved
race relations are the hopes that would be held by a utopian white
liberal rather than the vision held by most African-Americans. That is
one reason why African-Americans were initially so slow to support him
and why so many educated white elites feel so at home with him.
Obama is also famously detached and
it seems he never loses his cool. He does not fixate on economic
ideology but instead he is focused on creating his own personal success. That implies a very strong ego but also it again leads to an economic and also a foreign policy pragmatism.
If Obama is elected, I expect the
major economic storyline to be Obama pushing policies in the national
interest (as he perceives it) and Congress pushing back with earmarked
expenditures and privileges for special interest groups. It won’t be about Democrat vs. Republican.
There is plenty of talk about Obama
being half-black but perhaps the more important fact is that Obama is
from Hawaii. Many Hawaiians barely think of themselves as North
Americans and they live thousands of miles from the continent. The
Hawaiian background is part of where Obama’s cosmopolitanism – which is
strong and sincere – comes from.
My description may sound like a very
favorable portrait of Obama on economics but he will likely encounter
serious problems if he wins the election. The
important American Presidents are those like Reagan who “know a few big
things” and push them unceasingly, without much regard for the
pragmatic or even the reasonable. Obama is not
used to connecting with mainstream America and if he wins it is because
the country is fed up with Republicans, not because the voters have
absolute confidence in him. Congress will test him. The chance that he makes big mistakes will be small, and that’s all for the better. But the best prediction is that he will be ineffective in tackling most of America’s biggest problems.
How’s that Hope and Change working out, Tyler?
Tyler, this article is completely below your standards.
It’s cheap psycho-analysis and other forms of groundless speculation.
For instance, why does Obama’s cosmopolitanism come from Hawaii rather than Indonesia?
Where is there any evidence that Obama is “pragmatic,” or has imbibed “free-market principles” from the Chicago school of economics as opposed to being fundamentally leftist who favors a command-and-control economy with high taxes, heavy regulation, and democratically-determined distribution of wealth??
Tyler read Sailer’s book.
This is a pretty good article I think, however, this line:
“If Obama is elected, I expect the major economic storyline to be Obama pushing policies in the national interest (as he perceives it) and Congress pushing back with earmarked expenditures and privileges for special interest groups. It won’t be about Democrat vs. Republican.”
has not been confirmed by events. A less interesting article might have said:
“In the United States, Democrats are for big government, Republicans are for small government. Obama will make government bigger, especially if he has Democratic majorities in Congress, and Republicans will resist it. It will be the usual partisan tug-of-war, but with the Democrats stronger than usual, the government will grow.”
and that would have been truer.
How about the original text in Spanish for us to see?
“”In the United States, Democrats are for big government, Republicans are for small government.”
Care to try to prove that with any data? GL
Steve
This is actually not too bad a prediction, I believe. Colin, I’d focus more on the part of the article in the last paragraph. Skip the Democrat v. Republican thing (it’s really not mattered much, only superficially), the real tug-of-war is between Obama and Congressional leaders Pelosi and Reid. Republican opposition has been nothing more than crickets in the night. Democrats are in control, and every policy Obama has proposed has gotten dismantled and reassembled in Congress, probably in ways that Obama is not too favorable towards. His actions so far have shown big dreams (tackling health care and global warming), but those efforts are probably going to stall. At least, the ones that matter. The only policies that survive will be, as Tyler predicted, policy (Wal Mart supporting health care reform, perhaps?) aimed at benefiting special interest groups close to those in Congress.
I think this prediction becomes more and more prescient as this term progresses.
The comments on this blog are always very interesting and informative with the consistent exceptions of all posts where partisan politics is mentioned.
Tyler seems to be proving why so many economists, with their innate
political acumen are elected to public office.
Jefferson was obviously left wing. Lincoln was also left wing. As were Adam Smith, John Locke, and Voltaire. How do we know this? Because people at the time using the exact same word, the exact same way all would have described the aforementioned as men of the left.
Where’s the Spanish version?
Very grateful to a bunch of much better skills. I look forward to reading more of the future of the subject. Keep the good work.thanks.
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