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Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century
An instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller from one of the world’s leading economists, offering a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, but left us unsatisfied
“A magisterial history.”—Paul Krugman
Named a Best Book of 2022 by Financial Times * Economist * Fast Company
Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870–2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.
Economist Brad DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe, and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it reveals the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction.
“A magisterial history.”—Paul Krugman
Named a Best Book of 2022 by Financial Times * Economist * Fast Company
Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870–2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.
Economist Brad DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe, and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it reveals the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction.
624 pages, Hardcover
First published September 6, 2022
About the author
J. Bradford DeLong
16 books80 followersJ. Bradford DeLong is an economic historian who is professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. DeLong served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration under Lawrence Summers.
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September 7, 2022
This book provides a comprehensive narrative of a “long twentieth century” (1870-2010) that further informed my thinking about this era. An outstanding work of narrative history should work like a strong magnet among iron filings, pulling diverse pieces (facts) into a coherent pattern without distorting the given shape (reality) of those diverse pieces. And this is what DeLong has accomplished in this work. He draws together into a discernible pattern (to wit, a story) about the intersection of unprecedented economic realities (improvements, mostly) and their effect on national and international politics, and how various thinkers and political leaders responded to these new realities.
Back (well, way back) in the day when I was a political science and history major, I learned a lot about nineteenth and twentieth-century history from some fine professors and reading prominent historians writing about this era. But I realize now that economic history as a sub-discipline and political-economy as a whole were mostly overlooked. The economics of this period of extraordinary economic development and innovation was more or less taken for granted as the backdrop for the political and social history that dominated my curriculum. Until now, has there been a book that has filled this void? If so, I missed it. Columbia historian Adam Tooze has addressed several big chunks of this period quite admirably, but again, no one that I’ve read provides such an informed, comprehensive narrative of the economic and political-economic history of this era.
Another merit of this book comes from a point that DeLong makes about himself; that is, he considers himself both an economist and a historian. I assumed his merits as an economist; he’s worked in the Treasury Department and as a professor of economics at Berkley. And at the beginning of the book, there are facts and figures about economic development over the course of human history and about how economic development skyrocketed beginning about 1870 with the advent of business corporations, modern research labs, and cheaper, more efficient transportation and communication systems. But on the whole, the book is surprisingly light on figures, tables, charts, and formulas; you know, the stuff you’d expect to see from an economist. The flip side (the historian side, if you will) of this is DeLong’s narrative skill in recounting the course of events and thinking of this period. DeLong’s prose has a light touch that avoids economics jargon and avoids falling into ponderous academic prose. Indeed, DeLong’s prose includes a certain playfulness, such as his repeated touch phrase “the market giveth, the market taketh away, blessed be the name of the market.” Another instance of this light touch is his seemingly alternating designation of Hayek as both “genius” and “idiot” and as a Jekyll and Hyde. (Designations that seem spot-on from my perspective in the cheap seats. ) DeLong also frames much of his history as a yin and yang between Hayek’s market mania and Karl Polanyi’s emphasis on traditional rights and communities. And while these two deities of modern political-economic thought and their acolytes receive a lot of attention, John Maynard Keynes—the appropriate reverence seems to demand the full name—presides like Zeus or Thor over these two lesser gods. And as the high-god, Keynes seeks to impose order on the economic universe in the course of a continuing struggle against economic chaos left in the wake of the lesser gods (including old Marx). DeLong describes Keynes as brokering a marriage of the insights of Hayek and Polyani. If it’s a marriage that could be made to last, it will no doubt remain fruitful, but in these times, nothing seems stable. And, I should note that not only has DeLong confirmed by priors about Hayek (and the market in general), he has also confirmed my priors about Keynes as one of the great figures of the twentieth century. (My assessment was established after reading Zachery Carter’s work on Keynes, The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes (2020).)
I want to also note that I’m impressed with DeLong the historian. Not only does he write an engaging and informed narrative, but he also displays insights into the nature of the historical enterprise. For instance, toward the end of the book, while discussing the Great Recession of 2008, he compares his take with that of Adam Tooze in Tooze’s book, Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World (2018). DeLong considers how events in that era (as an example) balance between contingency and necessity; choice and structure. Tooze is more a proponent of structure and necessity; DeLong of contingency and choice. DeLong, however, concedes that future historians may come down closer to Team Structure-Necessity. Perhaps, but then we always wonder, don’t we: what if the Archduke had not been assassinated?
I could go on further at great length about the contents of this book, perhaps in a later essay. But I might find such an exercise futile and genuinely counter-productive. I can’t write as authoritatively or with as much felicity as DeLong about these events. Ergo, you should go immediately to his book and read it. I’m confident that you’ll find it well worth your time and enjoyably spent.
Back (well, way back) in the day when I was a political science and history major, I learned a lot about nineteenth and twentieth-century history from some fine professors and reading prominent historians writing about this era. But I realize now that economic history as a sub-discipline and political-economy as a whole were mostly overlooked. The economics of this period of extraordinary economic development and innovation was more or less taken for granted as the backdrop for the political and social history that dominated my curriculum. Until now, has there been a book that has filled this void? If so, I missed it. Columbia historian Adam Tooze has addressed several big chunks of this period quite admirably, but again, no one that I’ve read provides such an informed, comprehensive narrative of the economic and political-economic history of this era.
Another merit of this book comes from a point that DeLong makes about himself; that is, he considers himself both an economist and a historian. I assumed his merits as an economist; he’s worked in the Treasury Department and as a professor of economics at Berkley. And at the beginning of the book, there are facts and figures about economic development over the course of human history and about how economic development skyrocketed beginning about 1870 with the advent of business corporations, modern research labs, and cheaper, more efficient transportation and communication systems. But on the whole, the book is surprisingly light on figures, tables, charts, and formulas; you know, the stuff you’d expect to see from an economist. The flip side (the historian side, if you will) of this is DeLong’s narrative skill in recounting the course of events and thinking of this period. DeLong’s prose has a light touch that avoids economics jargon and avoids falling into ponderous academic prose. Indeed, DeLong’s prose includes a certain playfulness, such as his repeated touch phrase “the market giveth, the market taketh away, blessed be the name of the market.” Another instance of this light touch is his seemingly alternating designation of Hayek as both “genius” and “idiot” and as a Jekyll and Hyde. (Designations that seem spot-on from my perspective in the cheap seats. ) DeLong also frames much of his history as a yin and yang between Hayek’s market mania and Karl Polanyi’s emphasis on traditional rights and communities. And while these two deities of modern political-economic thought and their acolytes receive a lot of attention, John Maynard Keynes—the appropriate reverence seems to demand the full name—presides like Zeus or Thor over these two lesser gods. And as the high-god, Keynes seeks to impose order on the economic universe in the course of a continuing struggle against economic chaos left in the wake of the lesser gods (including old Marx). DeLong describes Keynes as brokering a marriage of the insights of Hayek and Polyani. If it’s a marriage that could be made to last, it will no doubt remain fruitful, but in these times, nothing seems stable. And, I should note that not only has DeLong confirmed by priors about Hayek (and the market in general), he has also confirmed my priors about Keynes as one of the great figures of the twentieth century. (My assessment was established after reading Zachery Carter’s work on Keynes, The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes (2020).)
I want to also note that I’m impressed with DeLong the historian. Not only does he write an engaging and informed narrative, but he also displays insights into the nature of the historical enterprise. For instance, toward the end of the book, while discussing the Great Recession of 2008, he compares his take with that of Adam Tooze in Tooze’s book, Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World (2018). DeLong considers how events in that era (as an example) balance between contingency and necessity; choice and structure. Tooze is more a proponent of structure and necessity; DeLong of contingency and choice. DeLong, however, concedes that future historians may come down closer to Team Structure-Necessity. Perhaps, but then we always wonder, don’t we: what if the Archduke had not been assassinated?
I could go on further at great length about the contents of this book, perhaps in a later essay. But I might find such an exercise futile and genuinely counter-productive. I can’t write as authoritatively or with as much felicity as DeLong about these events. Ergo, you should go immediately to his book and read it. I’m confident that you’ll find it well worth your time and enjoyably spent.
November 1, 2022
Readers might know Brad DeLong from either of two previous lives. In the 1990s he was a deputy under Larry Summers in the Clinton Administration. Then in the early 2000s he was one of the many professors who started semi-popular blogs; while many of the blogs faded away with lowrise jeans, his continues. In any case, DeLong is back with this book- a solid work of economic history. It's a nice refresher for people who know about this stuff and terrific for those who do not. Of course, for the latter some prerequisite understanding of economic policy and its history would be helpful. While it is a solid contribution for readers who spend a bit more time in the economics literature, it's not mindblowing. It is, nevertheless, a strong work that consolidates and expands on a number of arguments that we have seen elsewhere. For starters, I liked DeLong’s enlargement of the historical lens back to the 1870s when the period of economic growth kicked into high gear with the industrial and managerial revolution. It's also helpful that he quantified that increased rate of growth so that we can put the 20th-century rapid acceleration and more recent deceleration into a historical context. Of course, most of us had this knowledge in one way shape or form already, as it is not known as the industrial revolution because industrial production stayed the same as it has always been. DeLong also did a pretty good job periodizing the history. After the first generation of New Dealers passed away, it’s become fairly well accepted economic doctrine that the military production during WWII brought an end to the depression. The end of the New Deal era of course has been of interest for the last few years. DeLong's argument is many ways an expansion and enlargement of Paul Krugman’s argument in The Conscience of a Liberal where he argued that the economic growth rates and liberal policies of the 1940s-1960s created a rising tide that lifted all (or most all) boats and that this came to an end with the neoliberal and reactionary policies of the 1980s. The funny thing is that political scientists coming out of the Leftist tradition like David Harvey have been warning about neoliberalism for decades. It took a long while for liberal economists like DeLong to come along. It's interesting that he also posits the end or transformation of the neoliberal era. Unfortunately for all of us, the thing replacing neoliberalsim may be worse than neoliberalism itself. We are nowhere near utopia and we may not even be slouching towards it like we were until recently. It may or may not be too late, but the tides are certainly stacking against us. We need to regain our footing and catch a wave if we are to get back on our path.
September 14, 2022
The book is a good introduction to the economic and political history of the world and the period the author considers "the long twentieth century" (1870-2010) in particular. And nothing more. There is barely anything to be learned from it for people who already have a basic knowledge of history and economics.
The author's way of writing is hard to follow. DeLong goes off on tangents upon tangents and asks questions with a promise of an answer which is often not delivered, or delivered in an unsatisfying and roundabout way. The language is sometimes complex enough for an economics textbook and sometimes absurdly simplified to match internet memes (money printers going "brr" and the phrase "helluva drug" being used).
Some of the figures presented in this book are of dubious validity. The index of humanity's technological progress is useful in comparative perspective but supposedly simpler figures like the number of Soviet losses in 1941 or how many years the average woman living in pre-industrial society would have been pregnant and breastfeeding for are quite off.
A few of the small factoids are just blatantly wrong. For example in the chapter about WWII, DeLong says that the Nazis were unwilling to "go against their ideology" and employ more women in the German workforce. This is wrong, because in 1939 a larger share of German women were working than British or American women worked in 1945. (source: The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. Chapter 10, part IV)
But the greatest crime of this book is that the main question (Why the human race, being on average 8 times wealthier than in 1870, isn't living in an utopian society?) is never explored in much detail. The author talks a bit about inequality, a bit about how our material desires are never truly satisfied, a bit about how politicians and companies can profit from making us angry and unhappy, a bit about economic anxieties... but just a bit. There is a reluctance, in this book of grand narratives, to make a grand statement about what keeps us from transferring an 8-fold increase in living standards into an 8-fold increase in satisfaction with our lives and the state of contemporary civilisation.
In the conclusion, the author is heavily pessimistic about humanity's "slouch" towards utopia in the 21st century. The failure of political leaders and the economic science community to overcome the Great Recession marks the end of the long twentieth century and the beginning of a new much direr age. An age of slower growth (or even stagnation), marked by problems like populism and climate change. It is understandable to hear such prophesies of doom coming from a person who has witnessed in real time the institutional decline of California and the United States during his lifetime.
I urge readers to consider that despite the severe political and economic issues that mark our present, mankind possesses an enormous scientific potential. We have never had better facilities, never been more educated, wealthy, specialised or efficient. Material abundance in the developed world is already high, therefore it is more difficult to push it even higher. Add to this long-term sustainability concerns and we are probably doing almost the best we can. World GDP per capita (PPP and inflation adjusted) has increased by 22.3% since 2010. This may not yet be the end, but another period of instability and depressed growth like 1914-1949.
Finally, in my humble opinion, an 8-fold increase in 140 years through two world wars, decolonisation and the fall of the eastern bloc is not a "slouch" but a glorious march of human ingenuity and spirit in the face of tremendous adversity. May the future bring ever greater triumphs.
The author's way of writing is hard to follow. DeLong goes off on tangents upon tangents and asks questions with a promise of an answer which is often not delivered, or delivered in an unsatisfying and roundabout way. The language is sometimes complex enough for an economics textbook and sometimes absurdly simplified to match internet memes (money printers going "brr" and the phrase "helluva drug" being used).
Some of the figures presented in this book are of dubious validity. The index of humanity's technological progress is useful in comparative perspective but supposedly simpler figures like the number of Soviet losses in 1941 or how many years the average woman living in pre-industrial society would have been pregnant and breastfeeding for are quite off.
A few of the small factoids are just blatantly wrong. For example in the chapter about WWII, DeLong says that the Nazis were unwilling to "go against their ideology" and employ more women in the German workforce. This is wrong, because in 1939 a larger share of German women were working than British or American women worked in 1945. (source: The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. Chapter 10, part IV)
But the greatest crime of this book is that the main question (Why the human race, being on average 8 times wealthier than in 1870, isn't living in an utopian society?) is never explored in much detail. The author talks a bit about inequality, a bit about how our material desires are never truly satisfied, a bit about how politicians and companies can profit from making us angry and unhappy, a bit about economic anxieties... but just a bit. There is a reluctance, in this book of grand narratives, to make a grand statement about what keeps us from transferring an 8-fold increase in living standards into an 8-fold increase in satisfaction with our lives and the state of contemporary civilisation.
In the conclusion, the author is heavily pessimistic about humanity's "slouch" towards utopia in the 21st century. The failure of political leaders and the economic science community to overcome the Great Recession marks the end of the long twentieth century and the beginning of a new much direr age. An age of slower growth (or even stagnation), marked by problems like populism and climate change. It is understandable to hear such prophesies of doom coming from a person who has witnessed in real time the institutional decline of California and the United States during his lifetime.
I urge readers to consider that despite the severe political and economic issues that mark our present, mankind possesses an enormous scientific potential. We have never had better facilities, never been more educated, wealthy, specialised or efficient. Material abundance in the developed world is already high, therefore it is more difficult to push it even higher. Add to this long-term sustainability concerns and we are probably doing almost the best we can. World GDP per capita (PPP and inflation adjusted) has increased by 22.3% since 2010. This may not yet be the end, but another period of instability and depressed growth like 1914-1949.
Finally, in my humble opinion, an 8-fold increase in 140 years through two world wars, decolonisation and the fall of the eastern bloc is not a "slouch" but a glorious march of human ingenuity and spirit in the face of tremendous adversity. May the future bring ever greater triumphs.
January 25, 2023
Unlike many who have reviewed this book so far, I'm not a long-time reader of Brad DeLong's blog and I'm not particularly familiar with his previous work, either academic or popular. Unfortunately, I didn't find his account of what he calls "the long 20th century" (the period from 1870 to 2010) to be particularly enlightening on many fronts, largely due to the a few glaring holes in the narrative (most notably climate change). DeLong reassures readers at the start of the book that not being able to cover some topics is a consequence of writing a grand narrative history which he understands well, but I really think he uses this as a crutch to avoid talking about topics which he doesn't feel comfortable in or which disturb his grand narrative.
DeLong's narrative is basically as follows: starting in 1870, the world had achieved some measure of progress in living standards compared to pre-industrial societies, but this was concentrated among the upper and upper-middle classes in the most prosperous countries, while the vast majority of people were either still in a poverty trap, or worse, in servitude or even slavery. After 1870, however, something changed. The coming of the industrial-scientific research lab, the legal structure of the modern corporation, and the globalisation-enhancing technologies of communication and travel, all meant that economic growth went into overdrive, first in the period from 1870-1914, and later in the post-war period until the 1970s. This growth miracle was then complemented (in DeLong's view) by the fact that the world's pre-eminent economic power during the period was liberal-democratic and a supporter of the market system. While the increases in average living standards and aggregate production have been astounding over the long twentieth century, the ways in which increased wealth is dealt with as a society is a long way from the utopias which were envisaged by 19th century political theorists, such as Karl Marx or John Stuart Mill. Instead, as DeLong puts it, humanity learned to 'slouch towards utopia' - i.e. increase the lot of most people through the compounding effect of year-on-year wealth and income growth. With the fractures which have emerged in the twenty-first century (geopolitics, economic stagnation, climate), this progressive advance of global living standards seems to have gone off track, perhaps indefinitely.
Let me start with the things I did like about the book.
DeLong is obviously a competent analyst when applying the lessons of mainstream economics to historical events. When these events happen to be closer to the United States and closer to the times in which DeLong has been working as an economist, his analysis is often really clear, level-headed and focused. The closing chapters on neoliberalism, globalisation, and the great recession are the highlights of the book in my opinion, and perhaps a more humble book which covered the period of 1973-2010 would've made a much more compelling read (although there are quite a few books which tread this path already).
DeLong clearly cares about the state of public policy and economic governance in the United States and provides a clear narrative about how economic mismanagement is at the root of many of the causes of malaise in the modern-day U.S. To try to use the lessons of history as guidance for future policy action is admirable and something which I wish that more economic historians were brave enough to put into their books. DeLong notes at the end of the book that his focus on individual action and contingency is unlikely to be favoured by most historians, but that this is the narrative that he wanted to tell. Again, that probably doesn't make for the most compelling history, but has a function in DeLong's unstated aim of using the history of 20th century economic progress to inform responses to America's current economic woes.
Now for what I didn't like in the book.
DeLong's writing style irked me quite a lot (although I know this kind of personal blogging style has been praised by other reviewers) and some of the stylistic quirks he chooses are odd - particularly insisting on listing some of the places where people lived alongside their national/ethnic identity (for instance, why was Karl Polanyi described as a 'Torontonian'). DeLong also comes up with some catchphrases to summarize ideas which he sees as being too complex to treat at length - notably those of Polanyi and Friedrich Hayek. I can see where this would work in a short blog post, but this is supposed to be a 550 page book of economic history. Treat your readers as if they have the attention span to read something more than crude simplifications.
Content-wise, I found DeLong out of his depth when talking about history which didn't relate to the United States, with the chapters on Really-existing socialism and Fascism/Nazism being particularly boring. It feels like in these chapters that DeLong has nothing to add, past what you would get in a high-school history textbook. There is also a weird trend in the book, that the further away from the US you get, the further away from economic history you get. The extensive detours into the battlefield history of World War II are boring, add nothing to the narrative, and reads like something from an amateur military history aficionado. Not what you pick up an economic history book for. DeLong's treatment of political economy then in the post-war period reads like an economist who is unwilling to learn from other social scientists. Instead, the narrative comes off like an apologia from a self-described 'left neoliberal', who wants you to know that while he is nostalgic for the era of social democracy from 1945-1973, he also doesn't regret the policies which were implemented during his time in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1995. DeLong also is reluctant to try to step out of his own political point of view, and to give opposing points of view a fair hearing. He seems to think the hybrid of Polanyi and Hayek (mediated by Keynes), or of social democracy and neoliberalism, which he supports is so reasonable and unimpeachable that no further discussion is warranted.
The book ends with DeLong discussing the issues which are most important for the 21st century in brief. These are also issues which DeLong knowingly omits from the analysis of his long twentieth century. Climate is the most obviously glaring omission. DeLong knows and accepts the science on climate change, supports policies to redress it, and is aware that it is the biggest challenge which humanity faces. And yet, he's unwilling to take the leap into how this should completely reshape his analysis. He doesn't even begin to entertain the idea that the period after 1945 marked the entry into a new geological era, in which nothing can be understood without considering humans' indelible effect on the climate. How on earth can you sit and write in the 2010s on the history of economic growth and living standards without thinking about how this is related to climate change? DeLong's cursory glances at the history of energy and resources in the twentieth century is also incredibly disappointing. I could go on about the lack of analysis of geopolitics, but at this point I think you get the idea that there just isn't any.
Overall, I can say I learned quite a few things reading DeLong's book and that the actual reading is not at all difficult for a book of this length or scope. Nevertheless, it is a disappointing work of economic history, containing more than a few flaws. Chapters from it could maybe be recommended for high school students or introductory economic history courses in university, but overall this is not a book I would recommend to people who already have a decent understanding of the 20th century.
DeLong's narrative of the three drivers of 20th century growth (the industrial lab, the corporation, communication and travel technologies) is not wrong in many ways, but it is also not that enlightening when it comes to many of the most important questions. The reader is eventually left with questions that are better answered by better books on the subject.
DeLong's narrative is basically as follows: starting in 1870, the world had achieved some measure of progress in living standards compared to pre-industrial societies, but this was concentrated among the upper and upper-middle classes in the most prosperous countries, while the vast majority of people were either still in a poverty trap, or worse, in servitude or even slavery. After 1870, however, something changed. The coming of the industrial-scientific research lab, the legal structure of the modern corporation, and the globalisation-enhancing technologies of communication and travel, all meant that economic growth went into overdrive, first in the period from 1870-1914, and later in the post-war period until the 1970s. This growth miracle was then complemented (in DeLong's view) by the fact that the world's pre-eminent economic power during the period was liberal-democratic and a supporter of the market system. While the increases in average living standards and aggregate production have been astounding over the long twentieth century, the ways in which increased wealth is dealt with as a society is a long way from the utopias which were envisaged by 19th century political theorists, such as Karl Marx or John Stuart Mill. Instead, as DeLong puts it, humanity learned to 'slouch towards utopia' - i.e. increase the lot of most people through the compounding effect of year-on-year wealth and income growth. With the fractures which have emerged in the twenty-first century (geopolitics, economic stagnation, climate), this progressive advance of global living standards seems to have gone off track, perhaps indefinitely.
Let me start with the things I did like about the book.
DeLong is obviously a competent analyst when applying the lessons of mainstream economics to historical events. When these events happen to be closer to the United States and closer to the times in which DeLong has been working as an economist, his analysis is often really clear, level-headed and focused. The closing chapters on neoliberalism, globalisation, and the great recession are the highlights of the book in my opinion, and perhaps a more humble book which covered the period of 1973-2010 would've made a much more compelling read (although there are quite a few books which tread this path already).
DeLong clearly cares about the state of public policy and economic governance in the United States and provides a clear narrative about how economic mismanagement is at the root of many of the causes of malaise in the modern-day U.S. To try to use the lessons of history as guidance for future policy action is admirable and something which I wish that more economic historians were brave enough to put into their books. DeLong notes at the end of the book that his focus on individual action and contingency is unlikely to be favoured by most historians, but that this is the narrative that he wanted to tell. Again, that probably doesn't make for the most compelling history, but has a function in DeLong's unstated aim of using the history of 20th century economic progress to inform responses to America's current economic woes.
Now for what I didn't like in the book.
DeLong's writing style irked me quite a lot (although I know this kind of personal blogging style has been praised by other reviewers) and some of the stylistic quirks he chooses are odd - particularly insisting on listing some of the places where people lived alongside their national/ethnic identity (for instance, why was Karl Polanyi described as a 'Torontonian'). DeLong also comes up with some catchphrases to summarize ideas which he sees as being too complex to treat at length - notably those of Polanyi and Friedrich Hayek. I can see where this would work in a short blog post, but this is supposed to be a 550 page book of economic history. Treat your readers as if they have the attention span to read something more than crude simplifications.
Content-wise, I found DeLong out of his depth when talking about history which didn't relate to the United States, with the chapters on Really-existing socialism and Fascism/Nazism being particularly boring. It feels like in these chapters that DeLong has nothing to add, past what you would get in a high-school history textbook. There is also a weird trend in the book, that the further away from the US you get, the further away from economic history you get. The extensive detours into the battlefield history of World War II are boring, add nothing to the narrative, and reads like something from an amateur military history aficionado. Not what you pick up an economic history book for. DeLong's treatment of political economy then in the post-war period reads like an economist who is unwilling to learn from other social scientists. Instead, the narrative comes off like an apologia from a self-described 'left neoliberal', who wants you to know that while he is nostalgic for the era of social democracy from 1945-1973, he also doesn't regret the policies which were implemented during his time in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1995. DeLong also is reluctant to try to step out of his own political point of view, and to give opposing points of view a fair hearing. He seems to think the hybrid of Polanyi and Hayek (mediated by Keynes), or of social democracy and neoliberalism, which he supports is so reasonable and unimpeachable that no further discussion is warranted.
The book ends with DeLong discussing the issues which are most important for the 21st century in brief. These are also issues which DeLong knowingly omits from the analysis of his long twentieth century. Climate is the most obviously glaring omission. DeLong knows and accepts the science on climate change, supports policies to redress it, and is aware that it is the biggest challenge which humanity faces. And yet, he's unwilling to take the leap into how this should completely reshape his analysis. He doesn't even begin to entertain the idea that the period after 1945 marked the entry into a new geological era, in which nothing can be understood without considering humans' indelible effect on the climate. How on earth can you sit and write in the 2010s on the history of economic growth and living standards without thinking about how this is related to climate change? DeLong's cursory glances at the history of energy and resources in the twentieth century is also incredibly disappointing. I could go on about the lack of analysis of geopolitics, but at this point I think you get the idea that there just isn't any.
Overall, I can say I learned quite a few things reading DeLong's book and that the actual reading is not at all difficult for a book of this length or scope. Nevertheless, it is a disappointing work of economic history, containing more than a few flaws. Chapters from it could maybe be recommended for high school students or introductory economic history courses in university, but overall this is not a book I would recommend to people who already have a decent understanding of the 20th century.
DeLong's narrative of the three drivers of 20th century growth (the industrial lab, the corporation, communication and travel technologies) is not wrong in many ways, but it is also not that enlightening when it comes to many of the most important questions. The reader is eventually left with questions that are better answered by better books on the subject.
October 27, 2023
This book fell short of my expectations. For someone with a grasp of basic economic knowledge, "Slouching Towards Utopia" offered me no new fresh insights. Instead, I was distracted by the author's frequent and sometimes meandering digressions.
While it may offer a foundational understanding of the subject for newcomers, those seeking an in-depth and objective exploration of 20th-century economic history might consider other books that offer a more substantial and focused econimic history.
While it may offer a foundational understanding of the subject for newcomers, those seeking an in-depth and objective exploration of 20th-century economic history might consider other books that offer a more substantial and focused econimic history.
September 10, 2022
Imagine Sapiens, but about the last 150 years of economic history, and actually good – that's what DeLong has accomplished in this sweeping account of economic growth during the industrial and information revolutions, and the political changes that accompanied them.
DeLong is an excellent, clear, and unusually, very funny storyteller. Phrases like "multiverse", "snark", and "permanent Steampunk world" enliven his tale and make it more accessible, which focuses on individuals as well as ideas and statistics and sci-fi style counterfactuals.
The chapters do get a little repetitive toward the end, and as DeLong admits, it's focused on the US. But those are minor dings on a very important book.
DeLong is an excellent, clear, and unusually, very funny storyteller. Phrases like "multiverse", "snark", and "permanent Steampunk world" enliven his tale and make it more accessible, which focuses on individuals as well as ideas and statistics and sci-fi style counterfactuals.
The chapters do get a little repetitive toward the end, and as DeLong admits, it's focused on the US. But those are minor dings on a very important book.
December 9, 2022
The book is excellent in its sweep of early history, particularly up to the second World War, and does equally well in criticizing both the extreme left and right economic theories. However, the discussions lose objectivity and relevance as the author turns to the recent decades. They turn blindingly self-serving and completely US-centric as many of the prescriptions are beggar-thy-neighbour variety.
The book is unique for its focus on the history of the global political economy. The author is a devout Keynesian, which allows him to be equally harsh on the free-market theories of Hayek or Friedman as well as the communist policies espoused by the likes of Marx.
Through the horrors of the twentieth century, the book easily slams down every form of political extremism. At the midpoint, it becomes clear that any group that serves itself or an ideology - irrespective of whether political or economic - is naive at best in the assumption that all societies' ills could be solved by sticking to pure theories penned in some books. The end results are almost always far worse when such ideologues use their powers to suppress their internal and external dissenters and refuse to see the most obvious harmful results of their policymaking or politics.
Alas, in trying to promote the case of Keynesianism - re-branded as democratic socialism - the author falls prey to some of the same issues that face the ideologues of other types. This is particularly staggering when we are on the verge of another inflation era globally.
One could author a book with disagreements on the book's take on the era since the 1970s. The author does not even mention how the decades-long, post-WW2 boom was partly because of the low base start and partly also because of the policies that borrowed from the future (ie, led to the corrections of the 1970s).
Another driver of that era was the standing start of the Global South that allowed the already-ahead Global North to keep outperforming. Global South also took longer to get rid of some of the ideological, extremist political, and economic ism's, prolonging its plight.
By many measures, at a global level, the world's least privileged are living more, have materially better access to basic needs, have closed the gap on information/knowledge access substantially in our information age, and are being far less discriminated against than ever. There are still too many ills in the world to self-congratulate, but the author refuses to recognise that the trends on these were not necessarily positive in the decades he yearns for - not from the viewpoint of the world.
Keynesianism, like Capitalism or Communism, becomes too extreme as a stand-alone contender theory to solve all economic issues. Communism's failures are in its suppression of individual rights, its tendency to corrupt its powerbrokers because of the lack of checks, and concentrated, inflexible decision-making on inadequate information. Capitalism - in its purest form - lacks humanity, tends to runaway inequality of all kinds, and does not have enough protection for those left behind. It is also prone to excessive cycles that hurt the unprotected the most. Keynesianism's underbelly is in inefficient state policies, the populism that invariably gives rise to inflation, and the crowding out of the private sector, including in innovation.
The reality is such that any set of economic policies - whether in pure forms or as a mix and with its roots in trying to solve the worst problems of the previous set - will create its own problems over time. The macro policies, by definition, are applied at mass levels - which means there are always some who will be left behind in some ways, and over time their plights become bigger than other positives that accrue from these policies elsewhere. A pragmatic society, with a policymaking class that is not focused on working for themselves or any ideology, will have to keep shifting and shaping to remove the excesses (particularly the harmful ones) while never compromising on society's basic rules and norms. This flexibility is most difficult where those in power are set on any fixed goals - whether in boosting growth, reducing unemployment, or fostering equality - for a long time and/or wedded to a particular theory.
A slavish Keynesian approach causes governments to over-extend. While being morally and even politically correct, policies of subsidies, transfers, guarantees, and debt forgiveness, create obvious rot of a different variety after a while. Notwithstanding the fact that Keynesian or other forms of socialistic policies do not come in one form, none of these are forever right or wrong.
Back to the book: the book is a great read up until a point, and the reader's enjoyment would then depend on how much agreement they have with the author's economic preferences.
The book is unique for its focus on the history of the global political economy. The author is a devout Keynesian, which allows him to be equally harsh on the free-market theories of Hayek or Friedman as well as the communist policies espoused by the likes of Marx.
Through the horrors of the twentieth century, the book easily slams down every form of political extremism. At the midpoint, it becomes clear that any group that serves itself or an ideology - irrespective of whether political or economic - is naive at best in the assumption that all societies' ills could be solved by sticking to pure theories penned in some books. The end results are almost always far worse when such ideologues use their powers to suppress their internal and external dissenters and refuse to see the most obvious harmful results of their policymaking or politics.
Alas, in trying to promote the case of Keynesianism - re-branded as democratic socialism - the author falls prey to some of the same issues that face the ideologues of other types. This is particularly staggering when we are on the verge of another inflation era globally.
One could author a book with disagreements on the book's take on the era since the 1970s. The author does not even mention how the decades-long, post-WW2 boom was partly because of the low base start and partly also because of the policies that borrowed from the future (ie, led to the corrections of the 1970s).
Another driver of that era was the standing start of the Global South that allowed the already-ahead Global North to keep outperforming. Global South also took longer to get rid of some of the ideological, extremist political, and economic ism's, prolonging its plight.
By many measures, at a global level, the world's least privileged are living more, have materially better access to basic needs, have closed the gap on information/knowledge access substantially in our information age, and are being far less discriminated against than ever. There are still too many ills in the world to self-congratulate, but the author refuses to recognise that the trends on these were not necessarily positive in the decades he yearns for - not from the viewpoint of the world.
Keynesianism, like Capitalism or Communism, becomes too extreme as a stand-alone contender theory to solve all economic issues. Communism's failures are in its suppression of individual rights, its tendency to corrupt its powerbrokers because of the lack of checks, and concentrated, inflexible decision-making on inadequate information. Capitalism - in its purest form - lacks humanity, tends to runaway inequality of all kinds, and does not have enough protection for those left behind. It is also prone to excessive cycles that hurt the unprotected the most. Keynesianism's underbelly is in inefficient state policies, the populism that invariably gives rise to inflation, and the crowding out of the private sector, including in innovation.
The reality is such that any set of economic policies - whether in pure forms or as a mix and with its roots in trying to solve the worst problems of the previous set - will create its own problems over time. The macro policies, by definition, are applied at mass levels - which means there are always some who will be left behind in some ways, and over time their plights become bigger than other positives that accrue from these policies elsewhere. A pragmatic society, with a policymaking class that is not focused on working for themselves or any ideology, will have to keep shifting and shaping to remove the excesses (particularly the harmful ones) while never compromising on society's basic rules and norms. This flexibility is most difficult where those in power are set on any fixed goals - whether in boosting growth, reducing unemployment, or fostering equality - for a long time and/or wedded to a particular theory.
A slavish Keynesian approach causes governments to over-extend. While being morally and even politically correct, policies of subsidies, transfers, guarantees, and debt forgiveness, create obvious rot of a different variety after a while. Notwithstanding the fact that Keynesian or other forms of socialistic policies do not come in one form, none of these are forever right or wrong.
Back to the book: the book is a great read up until a point, and the reader's enjoyment would then depend on how much agreement they have with the author's economic preferences.
September 7, 2022
A true joy if you're a longtime DeLong reader, because the prose is deeply, deeply DeLongian.
The deepest weakness is that it sometimes leans too hard into surveying changes at the expense of arguing for its core thesis: that the research lab, corporation, and globalization enabled the massive growth of the long 20th century. That theory comes up repeatedly but DeLong doesn't give it as much space or defense as I would have liked. But he also would've had to cut down on, say, the discussions of the details of World War II, and there's a definite tradeoff there.
Overall, though, a joy, and a great introduction to these topics.
The deepest weakness is that it sometimes leans too hard into surveying changes at the expense of arguing for its core thesis: that the research lab, corporation, and globalization enabled the massive growth of the long 20th century. That theory comes up repeatedly but DeLong doesn't give it as much space or defense as I would have liked. But he also would've had to cut down on, say, the discussions of the details of World War II, and there's a definite tradeoff there.
Overall, though, a joy, and a great introduction to these topics.
August 9, 2023
This book turned out to be quite different from what I had imagined. Judging by the subtitle, I was anticipating a thorough and impassionate investigation into how the features of the global economy evolved during the twentieth century due to technological change, environmental factors and policy decisions.
It turns out I got both more and less than expected.
I got more because “Slouching towards Utopia” is anything but an impassionate book. From the very first pages, Bradford Delong makes it clear that his “grand narrative” is a very personal story. While his reconstruction of the economic history of the long twentieth century (1870-2010) is based on facts, it is very clearly infused with highly personal views, insights and values.
Delong indeed does not hide behind impartiality; he tells it likes he sees it and states his positions explicitly. Self-identifying as a “left neoliberal”, he openly expresses his high esteem for Karl Polanyi and John Maynard Keynes even though he also praises right-wing economist Martin Feldstein as a “brilliant, charismatic and superb teacher”. Delong is clearly ambivalent about the economic theories and policy prescriptions of Friedrich August von Hayek but has no kind words for Milton Friedman. Whereas the first is portrayed throughout the book as a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”-like figure (both a “far-sighted genius” and “an extraordinary idiot”), Friedman’s and Schwarz's "A Monetary History of the United States" is derided as nothing more than a tautology dressed up as theory.
Although I do not necessarily agree with all of Delong’s opinions and beliefs, I very much appreciated his willingness to express them openly rather than try to obfuscate them by using technical jargon and supposedly “neutral” language. It allows for easier reading if you know what the author stands for.
I also got more out of “Slouching towards Utopia” than I had anticipated because Delong is a born storyteller who clearly loves a good anecdote. The book is full of little stories and “vignette” biographies of famous and less famous men and women which add to the pleasure of reading.
I actually learned quite a lot of things I had never imagined reading about in an economic history book: about Herbert Hoover’s first career as a mining engineer in China, for example, and his efforts to save Belgium from famine in the early years of World War I, about the Tesla vs. Edison “war of the currents”, about why May 1 is celebrated as Labour Day in large parts of the world but not in the US and about why white bread may actually be more healthy than wholegrain depending on how much fibre the rest of your diet contains, etc.
These unexpected insights notwithstanding, the book let me down in other respects.
While I found most of Delong’s digressions interesting in and of themselves, I sometimes had the feeling they led the author astray to the point where he lost sight of the main story all together. Strange as it may sound, some chapters in this “Economic history of the twentieth century” barely discuss economic matters.
The chapter on World War I is a good example. From the point of view of the economic historian, there are numerous interesting angles to explore: the role of Britain in financing the war effort of the Allies and the impact this had on their supply of gold reserves and the level of overseas investment, the huge superiority of the Entente in terms of total output compared to the Central Powers, the impact on global trade flows of the disappearance of European competitors in various manufacturing sectors, etc. Instead of investigating these economic aspects of the conflict, DeLong’s discussion of World War I focuses almost exclusively on the pervasiveness of nationalistic sentiment in Europe. Now you may find his insights on nationalism interesting or not – I personally found them not very insightful and, frankly, a bit weird – but it struck me as odd that an economic historian would want to zoom in on this aspect of the war rather than on its economic determinants and consequences.
The same applies to the chapter on World War II which devotes quite a lot of space to the diplomatic history of the late 1930s as well as to the tactical and operational prowess of the German army. Except for a brief discussion of how economic factors contributed to the belligerent stance of Japan, the chapter hardly discusses economics at all.
On balance, this is definitely a book I can recommend to readers interested in the history of the twentieth century as told by an eminent but by no means narrow-minded economist. However, if it is an economic history in the traditional (more focused) sense of the word you are after, I would not necessarily recommend this book.
(You could try Kenwood and Lougheed's classic "Growth of the International Economy, 1820, 2015 instead (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...). Mind you, if you like a good story, it is much drier and less fun to read than DeLong's take).
3.5 stars.
It turns out I got both more and less than expected.
I got more because “Slouching towards Utopia” is anything but an impassionate book. From the very first pages, Bradford Delong makes it clear that his “grand narrative” is a very personal story. While his reconstruction of the economic history of the long twentieth century (1870-2010) is based on facts, it is very clearly infused with highly personal views, insights and values.
Delong indeed does not hide behind impartiality; he tells it likes he sees it and states his positions explicitly. Self-identifying as a “left neoliberal”, he openly expresses his high esteem for Karl Polanyi and John Maynard Keynes even though he also praises right-wing economist Martin Feldstein as a “brilliant, charismatic and superb teacher”. Delong is clearly ambivalent about the economic theories and policy prescriptions of Friedrich August von Hayek but has no kind words for Milton Friedman. Whereas the first is portrayed throughout the book as a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”-like figure (both a “far-sighted genius” and “an extraordinary idiot”), Friedman’s and Schwarz's "A Monetary History of the United States" is derided as nothing more than a tautology dressed up as theory.
Although I do not necessarily agree with all of Delong’s opinions and beliefs, I very much appreciated his willingness to express them openly rather than try to obfuscate them by using technical jargon and supposedly “neutral” language. It allows for easier reading if you know what the author stands for.
I also got more out of “Slouching towards Utopia” than I had anticipated because Delong is a born storyteller who clearly loves a good anecdote. The book is full of little stories and “vignette” biographies of famous and less famous men and women which add to the pleasure of reading.
I actually learned quite a lot of things I had never imagined reading about in an economic history book: about Herbert Hoover’s first career as a mining engineer in China, for example, and his efforts to save Belgium from famine in the early years of World War I, about the Tesla vs. Edison “war of the currents”, about why May 1 is celebrated as Labour Day in large parts of the world but not in the US and about why white bread may actually be more healthy than wholegrain depending on how much fibre the rest of your diet contains, etc.
These unexpected insights notwithstanding, the book let me down in other respects.
While I found most of Delong’s digressions interesting in and of themselves, I sometimes had the feeling they led the author astray to the point where he lost sight of the main story all together. Strange as it may sound, some chapters in this “Economic history of the twentieth century” barely discuss economic matters.
The chapter on World War I is a good example. From the point of view of the economic historian, there are numerous interesting angles to explore: the role of Britain in financing the war effort of the Allies and the impact this had on their supply of gold reserves and the level of overseas investment, the huge superiority of the Entente in terms of total output compared to the Central Powers, the impact on global trade flows of the disappearance of European competitors in various manufacturing sectors, etc. Instead of investigating these economic aspects of the conflict, DeLong’s discussion of World War I focuses almost exclusively on the pervasiveness of nationalistic sentiment in Europe. Now you may find his insights on nationalism interesting or not – I personally found them not very insightful and, frankly, a bit weird – but it struck me as odd that an economic historian would want to zoom in on this aspect of the war rather than on its economic determinants and consequences.
The same applies to the chapter on World War II which devotes quite a lot of space to the diplomatic history of the late 1930s as well as to the tactical and operational prowess of the German army. Except for a brief discussion of how economic factors contributed to the belligerent stance of Japan, the chapter hardly discusses economics at all.
On balance, this is definitely a book I can recommend to readers interested in the history of the twentieth century as told by an eminent but by no means narrow-minded economist. However, if it is an economic history in the traditional (more focused) sense of the word you are after, I would not necessarily recommend this book.
(You could try Kenwood and Lougheed's classic "Growth of the International Economy, 1820, 2015 instead (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...). Mind you, if you like a good story, it is much drier and less fun to read than DeLong's take).
3.5 stars.
March 26, 2023
Writing books with a very broad subject (like, the history of the world economy from 1870 to 2008) always confronts the author with a dilemma.
I have repeatedly pointed to such books that could have gained with 200 pages or so of contents that should have been relegated to the annexes for the interested reader.
DeLong has made the non-obvious choice (non-obvious for a serious academic, this is) to leave the details out of his book, and the result is a book that should benefit a very broad public.
The key question addressed is: how did the world, for the first time in history, break through the infernal Malthussian circle and achieve in a few decades an improvement in living standards that would have seem, well, utopic in the early 19th century? In doing so, DeLong does not pretend the ride has been smooth (just think of the lost decades between 1914 and 1945) or that every country on earth has taken the same road (one of the great merits of the book is that it does not just address the advanced market economies in the "West", but also the socialist experiments and developing countries).
Inevatibly, this sometimes leads to choices in focus that some readers will find strange (why does he spend more time on discussing the German breakthrough in France in May 1940 than on the different ways economic resources were mobilized for total war?). Some readers may also object to DeLong clear ideological preferences (he labels himself as a 'left neoliberal', which is an interesting way to describe adherents to Bill Clinton's "third way"), but I think this is preferable to authors with ideological blind spots.
Highly recomended.
I have repeatedly pointed to such books that could have gained with 200 pages or so of contents that should have been relegated to the annexes for the interested reader.
DeLong has made the non-obvious choice (non-obvious for a serious academic, this is) to leave the details out of his book, and the result is a book that should benefit a very broad public.
The key question addressed is: how did the world, for the first time in history, break through the infernal Malthussian circle and achieve in a few decades an improvement in living standards that would have seem, well, utopic in the early 19th century? In doing so, DeLong does not pretend the ride has been smooth (just think of the lost decades between 1914 and 1945) or that every country on earth has taken the same road (one of the great merits of the book is that it does not just address the advanced market economies in the "West", but also the socialist experiments and developing countries).
Inevatibly, this sometimes leads to choices in focus that some readers will find strange (why does he spend more time on discussing the German breakthrough in France in May 1940 than on the different ways economic resources were mobilized for total war?). Some readers may also object to DeLong clear ideological preferences (he labels himself as a 'left neoliberal', which is an interesting way to describe adherents to Bill Clinton's "third way"), but I think this is preferable to authors with ideological blind spots.
Highly recomended.
October 18, 2022
This is a new book by a well known and insightful economist and economic historian from Berkeley. The general punchline is that the path from 1870 (shortly after the American Civil War) to 2010 (shortly after the worst of the 2008 financial crisis and the “Great Recession”) constitutes a long 20th century in which the dominant story was the amazing economic performance of the economy in the period leading up to WW1 and in the 30 years following WW2. These were economic golden ages or “el dorados” that produced economic welfare on a scale never seen before in human history.
,,,oh if such performance could have been maintained and even improved upon. Utopia here we come?
Of course, that did not happen and the point of this sprawling interpretive history to tell a convincing story about what happened during this period and why things ended up as they did. Professor DeLong tells a really good story and tries hard to tie everything together. He largely succeeds, to the extent that anyone can succeed trying to spin this sort of explanation. There have been more than a few of these big histories in recent years, from “Capital in the 21st Century” by Thomas Piketty to “The Rise and Fall of American Growth” by Robert Gordon. Delong’s book fits in well among these other books and has the advantage of being relatively accessible to the general reader.
The key question for me is the if 2010 is the end of a long economic cycle, then what comes next, what is the next cycle about? That of course is the $64 question and I must do some pondering to process Professor Delong’s efforts. I really like how Delong, in developing his interpretive scheme, continually riffs off of both Hayek and Polanyi, with a large dose of Keynes. I hope the next process keeps these writers all in the mix.
,,,oh if such performance could have been maintained and even improved upon. Utopia here we come?
Of course, that did not happen and the point of this sprawling interpretive history to tell a convincing story about what happened during this period and why things ended up as they did. Professor DeLong tells a really good story and tries hard to tie everything together. He largely succeeds, to the extent that anyone can succeed trying to spin this sort of explanation. There have been more than a few of these big histories in recent years, from “Capital in the 21st Century” by Thomas Piketty to “The Rise and Fall of American Growth” by Robert Gordon. Delong’s book fits in well among these other books and has the advantage of being relatively accessible to the general reader.
The key question for me is the if 2010 is the end of a long economic cycle, then what comes next, what is the next cycle about? That of course is the $64 question and I must do some pondering to process Professor Delong’s efforts. I really like how Delong, in developing his interpretive scheme, continually riffs off of both Hayek and Polanyi, with a large dose of Keynes. I hope the next process keeps these writers all in the mix.
November 20, 2022
Really enjoyed this account of the long twentieth century from a historian-economist's point of view. Lots of food for thought to chew on, and it definitely helped me put some order in my thoughts on democracy, socialism, and neoliberalism.
November 28, 2022
wasn't this supposed to be economic history? there's more intro-level survey of geopolitics and military history than the promised discussion of technology, corporate governance, or the industrial research lab.
and I'm not quite sure the value of bringing in intellectuals like Hayek or Polanyi if their ideas and thought are simplified into "the market giveth, the market taketh away, blessed be the name of the market" (a slogan repeated ad nauseum) vs. “the market is made for man, not man for the market”
I don't think I'm the audience for this book
and I'm not quite sure the value of bringing in intellectuals like Hayek or Polanyi if their ideas and thought are simplified into "the market giveth, the market taketh away, blessed be the name of the market" (a slogan repeated ad nauseum) vs. “the market is made for man, not man for the market”
I don't think I'm the audience for this book
January 8, 2023
Not for me. Too light on economics and too heavy on (too surface-level) digressions into intellectual, political, and even military history. Fine as an accessible overview of the period. Not a terribly framed grand narrative, but would have liked more depth.
Read
February 3, 2023This is not a bad book. Delong rewrites Hobsbawm’s “Age of Extremes” but reframes it from a political short century to an economic long one. This is absolutely justified, and with hindsight that Hobsbawm lacked, we must conclude that the rise and fall of the socialist hope is of infinitely less import than the scientific innovations and economic transformations which changed the scale on which human life is experienced. This is not a bad book.
That said, Delong is a neoliberal, if a disappointed and disturbed one. The frame of his thinking ends at the social democratic European state, at a sort of nostalgic Polanyian MAGA that can only exist under the global dominance of a violent American empire. He discusses, but only in alarming brevity, the world-historic phenomenons of European colonialism and Global warming, and though he likes to give credit and blame to specific individuals for specific events, he never manages to acknowledge that the violence of really-existing capitalism, of, say, the Bengal famines, is the conscious policy of the same people and institutions that govern our world today.
But this is not a bad book. I do not share his politics, and I find his methods frustrating quite a few times over, but I appreciate his erudition and his thoroughness. He shines the brightest when he discusses concrete economic events, such as the Great Recession. Overall, an engaging read.
That said, Delong is a neoliberal, if a disappointed and disturbed one. The frame of his thinking ends at the social democratic European state, at a sort of nostalgic Polanyian MAGA that can only exist under the global dominance of a violent American empire. He discusses, but only in alarming brevity, the world-historic phenomenons of European colonialism and Global warming, and though he likes to give credit and blame to specific individuals for specific events, he never manages to acknowledge that the violence of really-existing capitalism, of, say, the Bengal famines, is the conscious policy of the same people and institutions that govern our world today.
But this is not a bad book. I do not share his politics, and I find his methods frustrating quite a few times over, but I appreciate his erudition and his thoroughness. He shines the brightest when he discusses concrete economic events, such as the Great Recession. Overall, an engaging read.
November 21, 2023
Utopia of the Middle Ground: Keynes, Hayek, Polanyi, and Economic Growth in the 20th Century
How does one make sense of this exponential economic growth in the world's most dynamic and complex period, i.e. the last 150 years? How do our social context and animal spirits frame our utopias and narratives about how to get there? Why do our public conflicts and personal dissatisfaction persist despite living the utopian dreams of our great-grandparents?
DeLong's ambitious book attempts to answer these questions. On the growth question, I've had much familiarity with one widespread answer: that "free market" economies and "individual responsibility" have given humanity these utopian increases in wealth, productivity, public goods, and rights. (I grew up in Midwestern small towns and participated in many libertarian organizations in college.) I've encountered far fewer systematic cases for Keynesian, social democracy, and mixed economies.
To that point, this book presents a very readable and useful grand narrative for how the world advanced rapidly due to liberal, market-based, social-democratic policies during the "long 20th century" (1870 to 2010). However, the grand narrative I interpreted is more political than DeLong's intended, secular narrative. He claims globalization, the industrial research lab, and the modern corporation as the key drivers of growth. I also failed to see definitive conclusions or predictive power in DeLong's arguments; and yet DeLong sees our economic growth definitely slowing compared to the long 20th century. Finally, DeLong also fails to account for one of the biggest headwinds for growth and prosperity narratives in the last 50 years: climate change.
DeLong simplifies and clarifies much in the last 150 years, but the complexity of the task sometimes gets away from him. Some conclusions come across too strong, some too weak. The framing around 'utopia' seems overly simplified. And so I'm still left feeling inconclusive about DeLong's narrative and what it implies about macroeconomic theory. But it does raise some interesting questions.
The book's first paragraph nicely introduces DeLong's narrative framing and conclusion which I'll analyze below:
Taking up the point about globalization, the lab, and the corporation, there seems to be a disjunct between what DeLong intends to say and what he actually says about drivers of growth. He spends less time on these aspects than on their controlling context: free markets, socialism, social democratic politics, and their respective policies and narratives as informed by Hayek, Polanyi, and Keynes. To be clear, this focus on context seems correct: no matter how advanced a society's resources, they cannot be put to any good long-term use without the proper sets of rules and incentives, and narratives conducive to those rules.
DeLong argues this point again and again: Actually-existing market economies underdeliver on public goods due to lack of regulations and norms; actually-existing socialist economies underdeliver on consumer goods and then collapse altogether; market economies disrupt beliefs and values about equality and non-economic exchange; socialist economies disrupt beliefs and values about entrepreneurship and free exchange.
In both types of economies, globalization, the lab, and the corporation do indeed accelerate growth and novel achievements, but come across as secondary to a conducive environment of democratic, market-based, mixed economies. DeLong seems to implicitly recognize this point, but does not frame his conclusions in that way. Adam Tooze similarly noted this disjunct in his review of the book for the Financial Times:
DeLong also abandons his key secular growth drivers when making one of his most distinctive claims: growth has declined significantly after 2008, marking the end of the "long 20th century." He makes the case by referring to neoliberalization policies and overstating the decline of economic growth but doesn't connect these back to globalization, the lab, and the corporation. Other authors have made more consistent and systematic cases. Even before reading DeLong I had been seeing increasing evidence of long-term US GDP growth decline due to lack of technological innovation at a par with earlier periods. Vaclav Smil makes the compelling point in his cold-eyed, eclectic diatribes and in his more systematic books, like Invention and Innovation. Direct productivity measurements have also marked this decline. These accounts use broad-based metrics to chart the decline. DeLong's metrics are narrow and questionable:
This metric is aligns with FRED data (with the caveat that I got .067% annualized growth which would be rounded up to .7%). But the claim about a "shocking falloff" is misleading. Where is the Great Depression comparison? Since the Great Depression was the largest and longest recession, shouldn't we expect 10 years periods over the course of the Depression to have the worst real GDP per capita growth rates? I couldn't find real GDP per capita, but just taking GDP, there was a decline over the period from 1929-1939. Given that massive contraction of the world economy, no doubt DeLong would have predicted that the 1930's marked the end of the growth period. There was no similar decline in the 2008 period. Even taking the worst possible 10 year period, there was still about .5% annualized growth. So why should DeLong's reasoning bear out now?
Moreover, using a single 10 year period is misleading and arbitrary. Starting a few years before or after DeLong's unexplained 2006 starting point yields very different growth rates. 2004-2014 is worse at .57%. 2008-2018 is better at .97% —and that's right before the 2008-2009 drop in GDP. 2009-2019 is 1.52%. Either the reader needs to know why 2006-2016 is representative or some additional measures should be used to triangulate DeLong's claim.
Adam Tooze likewise takes issue with DeLong's dark outlook on America:
So despite continued American dominance, over a hundred years of beneficial socio-political context and secular drivers of growth, and some significant differences in recent growth depending on where one looks, DeLong closes the curtain on the exceptional "long 20th century." Given DeLong's 20th-century framing of the book, his curtain call seems like conspicuously good timing. A more careful conclusion would note the uncertainty about the future, recognizing that future decades would either prove out an end of the long 20th century or its continuation.
But leaving aside the severity and finality of slower growth, is neoliberalization the primary explanation and concern for the future of growth? Maybe, but there are many other candidates which DeLong barely even mentions. I agree with Tooze that,
Even as we rise to meet the challenge, I suspect that the green resource transition is simply replacing old economic activity with less productive but more socially important spending. Green resources, namely energy, are harder to source and integrate than fossil fuel resources. This difficulty results in lower efficiency and therefore a smaller multiplier of economic activity (See Vaclav Smil). As the main input to economic production and exchange, energy costs play a large role throughout the world economy. We wouldn't have the economic growth rates of the long 20th century and the resulting modern world without fossil fuels. We are now investing more in green resources so that we can avoid dystopic futures. So it's misleading to worry about lower growth rates when the likely alternative of business-as-usual is progressively more natural disaster leading to more economic disaster.
This expected slowdown marks an intentional tradeoff rather than DeLong's straightforward evidence of declining growth and short-sighted neoliberalization. And of course there are other potential explanations like labor productivity changes, demographic changes, education as mostly signaling, and the complicated regulatory environment. But some of the original critics like Tyler Cowen—author of The Great Stagnation—have since changed their tune and see stronger growth in the future. Since the current period is still adjusting to these trends and DeLong's narrative takes a long-term view—wherein many 10 year periods looked dour—I'm skeptical of planting a stake in the ground so soon.
Despite controversial conclusions and limited framings, DeLong's grand narrative framing reveals important historical policies for pragmatists like myself who have a bias for taking history and natural experiments as starting points for public policy. When it comes to novel policies, we don't want to ignore any new potential, but we will try to favor policies that are testable and are based on empirical understanding in other domains. Nudges are a good example of novel policy based on relatively new research in the social sciences. All forms of anarchy are bad examples because they require a sea change and we have no good examples of anarchic regime change for societies larger than tens of thousands of people (and the current anarchic state of international politics arose organically from globalizing nation-states). The examples we do have of functioning intra-society anarchy, arose from bottom-up cultural evolutionary processes at much smaller scales and lower levels of development than modern societies (See work like anthropologist Pierre Clastres' Society Against the State).
Of course, some very large policy shifts do seem to have good or neutral outcomes. FDR's New Deal is one such large program which DeLong focuses on. It's very hard to imagine which of the competing policies at the time would have been the most successful at mitigating the Great Depression and setting up America to excel during WWII and the post-war period. It's even harder to imagine how the world would look like now with those alternate policies. At one point I might have thought that government intervention prolonged the Great Depression, but with accounts like DeLong's, it seems like government inaction caused more severe problems, especially given examples of governments which weathered the Great Depression period much better:
The Great Depression is too complex to be settled by a few summarized examples. However, it is a great example of how grand narratives can raise questions and highlight fact patterns that wouldn't be legible or convenient for other narratives. Indeed, I never heard about these examples in libertarian circles. And such complicating narratives are essential to informed future policy and defining achievable utopias. But that leads to my final question: should we even be talking about utopia?
DeLong helpfully draws connections between certain versions of utopia and novel policies, such as the New Deal, and mainline theories of human nature and economic activity. His preference settles on a Keynesian middle way between Hayekians and Polanyians. However, he doesn't directly engage hedonic adaptation or fundamental value differences which complicate utopias with the following questions: Which utopia applies to the whole world? Why should we think we were ever working towards that one utopian vision, let alone distinguishing between running or slouching towards it?
Keynes's utopian ideas fail for the typical reasons: a faulty understanding of human nature at the individual level—at the level of wants and needs—and at the socio-political level—at the level of values and beliefs for how the world should work. Hayekians focus on the individual and are realistic about incentives in a path dependent world. Polanyian social theorists focus on how a structure of individual incentives can conflict with how evolution and society have engendered values and beliefs about human dignity and the limits of a market system. In DeLong's framing, Keynes resolves many of the biggest conflicts between these two views of the world, but maintains some faulty assumptions about human nature and so makes faulty predictions about the individual and the macro environment.
The problem is that the first category can so easily bleed into the second category and that the first category holds within it many implicit desires that won't be felt or actionable until the more basic needs are met (a la Maslow's hierarchy). When will we ever live long enough? I'd bet that in the next 100 years, rather than first category needs being met, the standards for first category needs will be raised and continue apace of economic growth or continue at their current levels in case of economic decline. In this framing, it matters not whether we are running or "slouching" towards utopia—utopia can never arrive.
An additional complication: Hedonic adaptation is a paradoxical from of dis-ease; we will never be satisfied and so never reach utopia, and yet this striving for more catalyzes the economic exchange and productivity gains which will get us ever closer to utopia. Or at least some version of it, as many people conceive of utopia as the elimination of inequality and competitive striving, the direct opposite of anarcho-capitalist utopias. And so our fundamental values and beliefs are at odds. Where one sees a slouch towards utopia, another sees a flight from utopia.
. . .
[Continued in comment]
Every year since 1870 [has] seen as much technological and organizational progress as was realized every four years from 1770 to 1870 . . . every twelve years from 1500 to 1770[, and] every sixty years before 1500. (Ch. 1, ¶23 )
As John Maynard Keynes would write in 1919, . . . for the globe’s middle and upper classes, by 1914 “life offered, at a low cost and with the least trouble, conveniences, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages.” (Ch. 1, ¶77)
How does one make sense of this exponential economic growth in the world's most dynamic and complex period, i.e. the last 150 years? How do our social context and animal spirits frame our utopias and narratives about how to get there? Why do our public conflicts and personal dissatisfaction persist despite living the utopian dreams of our great-grandparents?
DeLong's ambitious book attempts to answer these questions. On the growth question, I've had much familiarity with one widespread answer: that "free market" economies and "individual responsibility" have given humanity these utopian increases in wealth, productivity, public goods, and rights. (I grew up in Midwestern small towns and participated in many libertarian organizations in college.) I've encountered far fewer systematic cases for Keynesian, social democracy, and mixed economies.
To that point, this book presents a very readable and useful grand narrative for how the world advanced rapidly due to liberal, market-based, social-democratic policies during the "long 20th century" (1870 to 2010). However, the grand narrative I interpreted is more political than DeLong's intended, secular narrative. He claims globalization, the industrial research lab, and the modern corporation as the key drivers of growth. I also failed to see definitive conclusions or predictive power in DeLong's arguments; and yet DeLong sees our economic growth definitely slowing compared to the long 20th century. Finally, DeLong also fails to account for one of the biggest headwinds for growth and prosperity narratives in the last 50 years: climate change.
DeLong simplifies and clarifies much in the last 150 years, but the complexity of the task sometimes gets away from him. Some conclusions come across too strong, some too weak. The framing around 'utopia' seems overly simplified. And so I'm still left feeling inconclusive about DeLong's narrative and what it implies about macroeconomic theory. But it does raise some interesting questions.
The book's first paragraph nicely introduces DeLong's narrative framing and conclusion which I'll analyze below:
The “long twentieth century” started with the watershed-crossing events of around 1870—the triple emergence of globalization, the industrial research lab, and the modern corporation—which ushered in changes that began to pull the world out of the dire poverty that had been humanity’s lot for the previous ten thousand years, since the discovery of agriculture.1 And what I call the “long twentieth century” ended in 2010, with the world’s leading economic edge, the countries of the North Atlantic, still reeling from the Great Recession that had begun in 2008, and thereafter unable to resume economic growth at anything near the average pace that had been the rule since 1870. (Inro, ¶1).
Taking up the point about globalization, the lab, and the corporation, there seems to be a disjunct between what DeLong intends to say and what he actually says about drivers of growth. He spends less time on these aspects than on their controlling context: free markets, socialism, social democratic politics, and their respective policies and narratives as informed by Hayek, Polanyi, and Keynes. To be clear, this focus on context seems correct: no matter how advanced a society's resources, they cannot be put to any good long-term use without the proper sets of rules and incentives, and narratives conducive to those rules.
DeLong argues this point again and again: Actually-existing market economies underdeliver on public goods due to lack of regulations and norms; actually-existing socialist economies underdeliver on consumer goods and then collapse altogether; market economies disrupt beliefs and values about equality and non-economic exchange; socialist economies disrupt beliefs and values about entrepreneurship and free exchange.
In both types of economies, globalization, the lab, and the corporation do indeed accelerate growth and novel achievements, but come across as secondary to a conducive environment of democratic, market-based, mixed economies. DeLong seems to implicitly recognize this point, but does not frame his conclusions in that way. Adam Tooze similarly noted this disjunct in his review of the book for the Financial Times:
in the process of narrating the twists and turns of economic policy, the corporations and research labs that DeLong celebrated in the opening chapters disappear almost entirely from view, until they roar back abruptly in his triumphalist account of microelectronics.
DeLong also abandons his key secular growth drivers when making one of his most distinctive claims: growth has declined significantly after 2008, marking the end of the "long 20th century." He makes the case by referring to neoliberalization policies and overstating the decline of economic growth but doesn't connect these back to globalization, the lab, and the corporation. Other authors have made more consistent and systematic cases. Even before reading DeLong I had been seeing increasing evidence of long-term US GDP growth decline due to lack of technological innovation at a par with earlier periods. Vaclav Smil makes the compelling point in his cold-eyed, eclectic diatribes and in his more systematic books, like Invention and Innovation. Direct productivity measurements have also marked this decline. These accounts use broad-based metrics to chart the decline. DeLong's metrics are narrow and questionable:
Over the entire decade of 2006–2016, measured real GDP per capita grew at a pace of only 0.6 percent per year—a shocking falloff from anything that had been seen earlier in the long twentieth century. (Ch. 2, ¶80)
This metric is aligns with FRED data (with the caveat that I got .067% annualized growth which would be rounded up to .7%). But the claim about a "shocking falloff" is misleading. Where is the Great Depression comparison? Since the Great Depression was the largest and longest recession, shouldn't we expect 10 years periods over the course of the Depression to have the worst real GDP per capita growth rates? I couldn't find real GDP per capita, but just taking GDP, there was a decline over the period from 1929-1939. Given that massive contraction of the world economy, no doubt DeLong would have predicted that the 1930's marked the end of the growth period. There was no similar decline in the 2008 period. Even taking the worst possible 10 year period, there was still about .5% annualized growth. So why should DeLong's reasoning bear out now?
Moreover, using a single 10 year period is misleading and arbitrary. Starting a few years before or after DeLong's unexplained 2006 starting point yields very different growth rates. 2004-2014 is worse at .57%. 2008-2018 is better at .97% —and that's right before the 2008-2009 drop in GDP. 2009-2019 is 1.52%. Either the reader needs to know why 2006-2016 is representative or some additional measures should be used to triangulate DeLong's claim.
Adam Tooze likewise takes issue with DeLong's dark outlook on America:
[A]re we convinced that this is how the American century ends — with a whimper, not a bang? The last few years hardly suggest as much. For better and for worse, the US Federal Reserve remains the hub of the global financial system. American military power and technology span the globe and are girding themselves for a clash with China. The US is a major energy producer and the supplier of last resort for liquefied natural gas.
So despite continued American dominance, over a hundred years of beneficial socio-political context and secular drivers of growth, and some significant differences in recent growth depending on where one looks, DeLong closes the curtain on the exceptional "long 20th century." Given DeLong's 20th-century framing of the book, his curtain call seems like conspicuously good timing. A more careful conclusion would note the uncertainty about the future, recognizing that future decades would either prove out an end of the long 20th century or its continuation.
But leaving aside the severity and finality of slower growth, is neoliberalization the primary explanation and concern for the future of growth? Maybe, but there are many other candidates which DeLong barely even mentions. I agree with Tooze that,
the big worry right now is the fear that the 20th century has set us hurtling towards collective [climate] disaster. . . Serenely untroubled by such concerns, Slouching Towards Utopia reads less like a history than a richly decked out time capsule, a nostalgic throwback to the 20th century as we imagined it before the great anxiety began.
Even as we rise to meet the challenge, I suspect that the green resource transition is simply replacing old economic activity with less productive but more socially important spending. Green resources, namely energy, are harder to source and integrate than fossil fuel resources. This difficulty results in lower efficiency and therefore a smaller multiplier of economic activity (See Vaclav Smil). As the main input to economic production and exchange, energy costs play a large role throughout the world economy. We wouldn't have the economic growth rates of the long 20th century and the resulting modern world without fossil fuels. We are now investing more in green resources so that we can avoid dystopic futures. So it's misleading to worry about lower growth rates when the likely alternative of business-as-usual is progressively more natural disaster leading to more economic disaster.
This expected slowdown marks an intentional tradeoff rather than DeLong's straightforward evidence of declining growth and short-sighted neoliberalization. And of course there are other potential explanations like labor productivity changes, demographic changes, education as mostly signaling, and the complicated regulatory environment. But some of the original critics like Tyler Cowen—author of The Great Stagnation—have since changed their tune and see stronger growth in the future. Since the current period is still adjusting to these trends and DeLong's narrative takes a long-term view—wherein many 10 year periods looked dour—I'm skeptical of planting a stake in the ground so soon.
Despite controversial conclusions and limited framings, DeLong's grand narrative framing reveals important historical policies for pragmatists like myself who have a bias for taking history and natural experiments as starting points for public policy. When it comes to novel policies, we don't want to ignore any new potential, but we will try to favor policies that are testable and are based on empirical understanding in other domains. Nudges are a good example of novel policy based on relatively new research in the social sciences. All forms of anarchy are bad examples because they require a sea change and we have no good examples of anarchic regime change for societies larger than tens of thousands of people (and the current anarchic state of international politics arose organically from globalizing nation-states). The examples we do have of functioning intra-society anarchy, arose from bottom-up cultural evolutionary processes at much smaller scales and lower levels of development than modern societies (See work like anthropologist Pierre Clastres' Society Against the State).
Of course, some very large policy shifts do seem to have good or neutral outcomes. FDR's New Deal is one such large program which DeLong focuses on. It's very hard to imagine which of the competing policies at the time would have been the most successful at mitigating the Great Depression and setting up America to excel during WWII and the post-war period. It's even harder to imagine how the world would look like now with those alternate policies. At one point I might have thought that government intervention prolonged the Great Depression, but with accounts like DeLong's, it seems like government inaction caused more severe problems, especially given examples of governments which weathered the Great Depression period much better:
In one region of the North Atlantic alone was the Great Depression shallow, short, and followed by a decade of strong economic growth: Scandinavia. . . pursued housing subsidies, paid holiday and maternity benefits, expanded public-sector employment, government loans to the newly married, and the like—all made possible by a monetary policy that cut loose from the gold standard earlier than other countries. . .
Close behind Scandinavia in having a mild Great Depression was Japan, which abandoned fiscal orthodoxy and budget balancing in 1931. The Great Depression in Japan was not deep, and it was over by 1932. (Ch. 7, ¶63)
The Great Depression is too complex to be settled by a few summarized examples. However, it is a great example of how grand narratives can raise questions and highlight fact patterns that wouldn't be legible or convenient for other narratives. Indeed, I never heard about these examples in libertarian circles. And such complicating narratives are essential to informed future policy and defining achievable utopias. But that leads to my final question: should we even be talking about utopia?
DeLong helpfully draws connections between certain versions of utopia and novel policies, such as the New Deal, and mainline theories of human nature and economic activity. His preference settles on a Keynesian middle way between Hayekians and Polanyians. However, he doesn't directly engage hedonic adaptation or fundamental value differences which complicate utopias with the following questions: Which utopia applies to the whole world? Why should we think we were ever working towards that one utopian vision, let alone distinguishing between running or slouching towards it?
Keynes's utopian ideas fail for the typical reasons: a faulty understanding of human nature at the individual level—at the level of wants and needs—and at the socio-political level—at the level of values and beliefs for how the world should work. Hayekians focus on the individual and are realistic about incentives in a path dependent world. Polanyian social theorists focus on how a structure of individual incentives can conflict with how evolution and society have engendered values and beliefs about human dignity and the limits of a market system. In DeLong's framing, Keynes resolves many of the biggest conflicts between these two views of the world, but maintains some faulty assumptions about human nature and so makes faulty predictions about the individual and the macro environment.
[Needs] fall into two classes—those needs which are absolute in the sense that we feel them whatever the situation of our fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative in the sense that we feel them only if their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows. Needs of the second class, those which satisfy the desire for superiority, may indeed be insatiable; for the higher the general level, the higher still are they. But this is not so true of the absolute needs—a point may soon be reached, much sooner perhaps than we are all of us aware of, when these needs are satisfied in the sense that we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic purposes. ("Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren", 4)
The problem is that the first category can so easily bleed into the second category and that the first category holds within it many implicit desires that won't be felt or actionable until the more basic needs are met (a la Maslow's hierarchy). When will we ever live long enough? I'd bet that in the next 100 years, rather than first category needs being met, the standards for first category needs will be raised and continue apace of economic growth or continue at their current levels in case of economic decline. In this framing, it matters not whether we are running or "slouching" towards utopia—utopia can never arrive.
An additional complication: Hedonic adaptation is a paradoxical from of dis-ease; we will never be satisfied and so never reach utopia, and yet this striving for more catalyzes the economic exchange and productivity gains which will get us ever closer to utopia. Or at least some version of it, as many people conceive of utopia as the elimination of inequality and competitive striving, the direct opposite of anarcho-capitalist utopias. And so our fundamental values and beliefs are at odds. Where one sees a slouch towards utopia, another sees a flight from utopia.
. . .
[Continued in comment]
October 22, 2022
DeLong, a professor of economics at UC Berkeley, writes on the "Long Twentieth Century" from 1870 to 2010, which he considers the most consequential in human history, not least for the escape from subsistence poverty which was the fate of nearly all of humanity up to that point since the institution of agriculture. Before 1870, DeLong writes, technological advances and political innovations were still not enough to outrun population growth.
DeLong's argument emphasizes the growth of modern trade, the creation of the modern scientific laboratory, and the evolution of the modern corporation as engines for economic growth; and these tend to stand in for political economy, manufacturing, and finance, respectively. In particular. DeLong focuses on Western Europe and the United States, as these were the first to reach what he classifies as a modern economy. DeLong's formulae suggest an agonizingly slow rate of total factor productivity until about 1870, and then it shot up exponentially. Had the residents of the early 19th century noted how materially prosperous most of us in the early 21st century would be, compared to them, then they would imagine we had made heaven on earth. We have not. Material prosperity did not stave off the First World War, economic growth generates awareness of inequality and other disruptions.
But we cannot say that DeLong is totally materialist. To quote DeLong quoting Max Weber: "[M]aterial interests may drive the trains down the tracks [...] ideas are the switchmen.” DeLong frames ideologies about the new economy as a kind duel between two extremes: those who emphasize the free market, epitomized by Friedrich Hayek; and those who think the 'free markets' only exists because of government intervention and should be regulated and controlled, an example being Karl Polanyi.
To return to the First World War and its aftermath, Delong asserts the extreme versions of these ideological frameworks each brought their own troubles. The 20th century was found in the attempts to wish back the genie of material prosperity, at times with disastrous consequences. the laissez-faire fundamentalists watched helplessly at the immiseration of the Great Depression; the most extreme version of the command economy was found in Stalin's vision of the Soviet Union, which was too dependent on heavy industrialization and was unable to reform as new technologies developed; it in turn became dependent on the export of oil and grain and unable to survive price shocks.
But by the post-WWII era and later, there is some uncertainty about the grand narrative - DeLong tends to demurr, add too many confounding variables, demurring about how globalization in and of itself became such a target of hatred. He raises and then dismisses other points; briefly going to discuss gender inequality, and briefly something about oil price shocks. He raises points for and against other factors' importance, but I suspect that it is that the question of the book is simply too large and there are simply too many points to bring up.
The caricature of the economist is that they are too set in their predictions and models. But this is history, and DeLong, by contrast, emphasizes the role of contingency and the importance of individual decision-making. The book itself is sprawling and tends to easily digress, but it does contain the capsule summary of an event or useful anecdote. Unfortunately, it is not nearly as well cited as I would have hoped. But it reads quickly enough, and easily enough, that the reader can come along for the ride and revisit the big questions, framed as such, even if the answers are still elusive.
DeLong's argument emphasizes the growth of modern trade, the creation of the modern scientific laboratory, and the evolution of the modern corporation as engines for economic growth; and these tend to stand in for political economy, manufacturing, and finance, respectively. In particular. DeLong focuses on Western Europe and the United States, as these were the first to reach what he classifies as a modern economy. DeLong's formulae suggest an agonizingly slow rate of total factor productivity until about 1870, and then it shot up exponentially. Had the residents of the early 19th century noted how materially prosperous most of us in the early 21st century would be, compared to them, then they would imagine we had made heaven on earth. We have not. Material prosperity did not stave off the First World War, economic growth generates awareness of inequality and other disruptions.
But we cannot say that DeLong is totally materialist. To quote DeLong quoting Max Weber: "[M]aterial interests may drive the trains down the tracks [...] ideas are the switchmen.” DeLong frames ideologies about the new economy as a kind duel between two extremes: those who emphasize the free market, epitomized by Friedrich Hayek; and those who think the 'free markets' only exists because of government intervention and should be regulated and controlled, an example being Karl Polanyi.
To return to the First World War and its aftermath, Delong asserts the extreme versions of these ideological frameworks each brought their own troubles. The 20th century was found in the attempts to wish back the genie of material prosperity, at times with disastrous consequences. the laissez-faire fundamentalists watched helplessly at the immiseration of the Great Depression; the most extreme version of the command economy was found in Stalin's vision of the Soviet Union, which was too dependent on heavy industrialization and was unable to reform as new technologies developed; it in turn became dependent on the export of oil and grain and unable to survive price shocks.
But by the post-WWII era and later, there is some uncertainty about the grand narrative - DeLong tends to demurr, add too many confounding variables, demurring about how globalization in and of itself became such a target of hatred. He raises and then dismisses other points; briefly going to discuss gender inequality, and briefly something about oil price shocks. He raises points for and against other factors' importance, but I suspect that it is that the question of the book is simply too large and there are simply too many points to bring up.
The caricature of the economist is that they are too set in their predictions and models. But this is history, and DeLong, by contrast, emphasizes the role of contingency and the importance of individual decision-making. The book itself is sprawling and tends to easily digress, but it does contain the capsule summary of an event or useful anecdote. Unfortunately, it is not nearly as well cited as I would have hoped. But it reads quickly enough, and easily enough, that the reader can come along for the ride and revisit the big questions, framed as such, even if the answers are still elusive.
November 4, 2023
A masterwork!
In this history, the author examines humanity’s quest for economic and social utopia over the course of the “long 20th century”, defined as the period 1870 to 2010. To place the discussion in a helpful perspective, the evolution of “useful ideas” (productivity enhancing) and income from 8,000 BCE to today is traced. His grand narrative is the long century is best understood through its economics.
Spoiler alert:
In the author’s view - We came close to some sense of utopia (my definition-an improving, sustainable, equitable economic world) but politics, war, financial crises, religious/ideological extremism, and epidemics created debilitating headwinds. The most recent surge, 1945 to 1975, and to a lesser degree the period up to the GFC and Great Recession, represented a golden era, at least for the Global North, and provided unprecedented and almost unimaginable material progress for much of society. Globalization and technological advance fueled this positive trajectory. The Global South has lagged for the most part.
In the background raged the divergent thinking of Hayek, Keynes, and Polanyi. The last quarter of the 20th century and the years of the early 21st witnessed the ascendancy of Hayek (the infallible market) and neo-liberalism in the economic sphere over K and P, and far-right ethnic nationalism in the political. Bad policy choices, accretion of imbalances and rash actions lay the groundwork for the events that have resulted in the world stumbling in the last decade or so. We are searching for our sea legs, much as we have after periods of economic, social and political dislocation in our past.
Trump, Putin, Xi, and others are the gremlins we face and must overcome in a world threatened by growing inequality, political polarization, and catastrophic climate change, in order to resume our “slouching towards utopia”.
I strongly recommend this excellent book.
In this history, the author examines humanity’s quest for economic and social utopia over the course of the “long 20th century”, defined as the period 1870 to 2010. To place the discussion in a helpful perspective, the evolution of “useful ideas” (productivity enhancing) and income from 8,000 BCE to today is traced. His grand narrative is the long century is best understood through its economics.
Spoiler alert:
In the author’s view - We came close to some sense of utopia (my definition-an improving, sustainable, equitable economic world) but politics, war, financial crises, religious/ideological extremism, and epidemics created debilitating headwinds. The most recent surge, 1945 to 1975, and to a lesser degree the period up to the GFC and Great Recession, represented a golden era, at least for the Global North, and provided unprecedented and almost unimaginable material progress for much of society. Globalization and technological advance fueled this positive trajectory. The Global South has lagged for the most part.
In the background raged the divergent thinking of Hayek, Keynes, and Polanyi. The last quarter of the 20th century and the years of the early 21st witnessed the ascendancy of Hayek (the infallible market) and neo-liberalism in the economic sphere over K and P, and far-right ethnic nationalism in the political. Bad policy choices, accretion of imbalances and rash actions lay the groundwork for the events that have resulted in the world stumbling in the last decade or so. We are searching for our sea legs, much as we have after periods of economic, social and political dislocation in our past.
Trump, Putin, Xi, and others are the gremlins we face and must overcome in a world threatened by growing inequality, political polarization, and catastrophic climate change, in order to resume our “slouching towards utopia”.
I strongly recommend this excellent book.
November 10, 2022
A magisterial, sweeping, and often enthralling account of modern economic growth from 1870 to 2010 full of Brad Delong's distinctive wit. The grand narrative is centered on a push and pull between Hayekian market forces and Polyanin social democratic forces along with the authority extremes that tried to move against both. Delong clearly is more sympathetic to Polyani, but does not deny the immense power of the market and repudiates the socialistic tendencies to plan the economy.
I more often than not fully enjoyed the work, but felt frustrated at times. In particular, for a work of economic history from a tenured economist at Berkley, there is not a single graph or chart. At times this is comical as he describes what a graph looks like...but then doesn't actually have an image of it. This seems a very odd decision and to me weakens the explanatory power of some of his points as a graphic can often tell far more than a wall of text. Would it have been that hard to get an RA to make a few graphs?
Towards the end too I became I bit less interested as Delong seemed more speculative and politicalized in his conclusions where he really seemed to draw, or at least reference, the current economics literature. As with many works by Americans it seemed too America-centric. Delong at least tends to acknowledge and he certainly has sections on the non-Western world and the global south, but for me it was still too little. Part of this though may be due to my personal bias/interest, and Delong broadly is right that the century he covers really was an America-centric century.
Nonetheless, for a grand narrative, it is excellent and despite the quibbles, it's a fantastic work explaining the power of economic growth, the perils of extremism, and the difficulty of progress that may be slow and disappointing but is real.
I more often than not fully enjoyed the work, but felt frustrated at times. In particular, for a work of economic history from a tenured economist at Berkley, there is not a single graph or chart. At times this is comical as he describes what a graph looks like...but then doesn't actually have an image of it. This seems a very odd decision and to me weakens the explanatory power of some of his points as a graphic can often tell far more than a wall of text. Would it have been that hard to get an RA to make a few graphs?
Towards the end too I became I bit less interested as Delong seemed more speculative and politicalized in his conclusions where he really seemed to draw, or at least reference, the current economics literature. As with many works by Americans it seemed too America-centric. Delong at least tends to acknowledge and he certainly has sections on the non-Western world and the global south, but for me it was still too little. Part of this though may be due to my personal bias/interest, and Delong broadly is right that the century he covers really was an America-centric century.
Nonetheless, for a grand narrative, it is excellent and despite the quibbles, it's a fantastic work explaining the power of economic growth, the perils of extremism, and the difficulty of progress that may be slow and disappointing but is real.
August 15, 2023
Very interesting and up to date analysis of the “long twentieth century”, during which we saw a great number of technological evolutions that theoretically could have taken us to a complete utopia, but in the end didn’t (far from it). The book reflects on why things turned out the way they did, allowing us to better understand the past and prepare for what will come in the future - as “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes”
April 10, 2023
If I could give this book a negative score, I would.
I will not elaborate.
I will not elaborate.
October 9, 2023
I was very excited about this book given its title, but it turned out to be a packaged straw-manning and selective history-telling.
The first sections of the book are things you might expect from a book about the economic history of late 19 century: rapid industrialization and growth, innovation, and the advent of new technologies as a consequence of the adaptation of the free market in the US and parts of Europe. However, strangely, the author throws random jabs at the proponents of the free market in the same breath that he is praising the free market. These parts have a very strange flow: you are reading about technological development and in the next line he calls Hayek and his followers stupid.
Reading this book, it becomes clear that DeLong really has a disdain for the Austrian school of economics and other defenders of the free market like Milton Friedmann. DeLong's caricaturish depiction of Freidmann as a buffoon with no intellectual depth completely neglects his contribution to the economic science, which, among other things, won Freidmann a goddamn Nobel prize in economics. He goes as far as implicitly connecting Hayek and his love of the free market to colonialism. Throughout the book, he regularly asserts that Hayek only believed in a property right, completely neglecting his defense of free speech, the right of personal autonomy and self-determination, the right to due process etc. It is strange to read a book that covers figures such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini, which manages to depict the likes of Hayek as the main villain of 20 century.
On the other hand, DeLong LOVES him some Keynes and can't get enough of him. Keynes is treated as a sort of prophet that has always been right on every matter. I would not have had much problem with this if he had consistency and did engage in double standards: when talking about the great depression, free marketers and the likes of Hayek are regularly attacked. I do not deep enough economic knowledge to know if he is justified in these attacks or not, but does he drop Keynes' name even once when talking about the stagflation of 1970s which was a consequence of Keynesian economics, and was tamed when non-Keynesian ideas of the likes of Friedmann were put in practice? Of course not.
This double standard and dishonesty is further demonstrated after his coverage of fascism. He brings examples of right-wing economics and intellectuals supporting aspects of fascism to slam them. Fair enough, but I'm sure there have been many left-of-center intellectuals who have supported the Soviet Union too. He of course does not mention them, reasoning that it does not matter and at the end of the day, fascism and communism might share a lot of burden in the 20th century. If that is the case, what is the reason for his selective, asymmetric outrage toward the right-wingers? You either give examples from both sides or from non if you are unbiased.
The book also suffers from a major factual error when discussing the supposed coup d'etat in Iran. DeLong mistakes Mohammadreza Shah for his father, Reza Shah, going on rants about how Reza Shah was seen as a great resistance to communism between 50s and 70s. This of course is laughable, as Reza Shah was not in power after 1941, and passed away in 1944.
And then there is the dishonesty: anyone slightly familiar with the current political and social currents in US would know that when Americans, which are the primary target of this book, hear the word "social democracy", they think about the policies pushed by the likes of Bernie Sanders, AOC etc. However, DeLong uses that term to describe the period between the end of the WWII, and 1980s, which is actually sometimes called the golden age of capitalism. Building the interstate highway system did not make US a socialist country, and no one in their right mind would call Einsenhover's style of government a social democracy. Here DeLong is simply using the prestige and the good name that this era has to give some good publicity to the term "social democracy".
When covering the post WWII era, DeLong claims that Europe being a more socialist system compared to US was not a given considering the history of the US and Europe. This is such an absurd claim: the modern social security programs were started by Bismark in Germany, which, interestingly, is considered a titan of European conservatism. Looks like even the conservative Europeans have been on the left side of the American mainstream political currents. Much of the American identity is shaped by the fear of big government, emphasis on individualism and property rights, all of which are hallmarks of the political right. Furthermore, the left-leaning movements in US have been much tamer than their counterparts in Europe during the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
As the timeline of the book progresses, the more mundane aspects of politics start to also appear in the book. While the earlier chapters would spray the reader with numbers, and a good chunk of the book is dedicated to discussing the horrors of regimes like Hitler's, Stalin's, and Mao's, it degenerates to the coverage of petty fights between Trump and Antony Fauci during covid. Seriously, if you are a historian writing a book about one of the most eventful centuries of mankind, please leave the guy who left the office 2 years ago out of the picture. This section of the book also did not age well: DeLong engages in another strawman instance in which he accuses Trump to characterize covid as a Chinese bioweapon. This is, of course, not true and dishonest. Trump's claim was that the virus has escaped from the lab, and not that China intentionally made the virus to kill people. Interestingly, the lab leak theory is getting more mainstream support every day, and it is indeed very likely that Trump's assessment was right about the origin of covid.
The parts of the book that do not suffer from factual errors and dishonest coverage are nice, but they do not provide new scholarly research or results. If you are familiar with the major trends and events of the period that the book covers, you will not find much new here. I recommend not wasting your time.
The first sections of the book are things you might expect from a book about the economic history of late 19 century: rapid industrialization and growth, innovation, and the advent of new technologies as a consequence of the adaptation of the free market in the US and parts of Europe. However, strangely, the author throws random jabs at the proponents of the free market in the same breath that he is praising the free market. These parts have a very strange flow: you are reading about technological development and in the next line he calls Hayek and his followers stupid.
Reading this book, it becomes clear that DeLong really has a disdain for the Austrian school of economics and other defenders of the free market like Milton Friedmann. DeLong's caricaturish depiction of Freidmann as a buffoon with no intellectual depth completely neglects his contribution to the economic science, which, among other things, won Freidmann a goddamn Nobel prize in economics. He goes as far as implicitly connecting Hayek and his love of the free market to colonialism. Throughout the book, he regularly asserts that Hayek only believed in a property right, completely neglecting his defense of free speech, the right of personal autonomy and self-determination, the right to due process etc. It is strange to read a book that covers figures such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini, which manages to depict the likes of Hayek as the main villain of 20 century.
On the other hand, DeLong LOVES him some Keynes and can't get enough of him. Keynes is treated as a sort of prophet that has always been right on every matter. I would not have had much problem with this if he had consistency and did engage in double standards: when talking about the great depression, free marketers and the likes of Hayek are regularly attacked. I do not deep enough economic knowledge to know if he is justified in these attacks or not, but does he drop Keynes' name even once when talking about the stagflation of 1970s which was a consequence of Keynesian economics, and was tamed when non-Keynesian ideas of the likes of Friedmann were put in practice? Of course not.
This double standard and dishonesty is further demonstrated after his coverage of fascism. He brings examples of right-wing economics and intellectuals supporting aspects of fascism to slam them. Fair enough, but I'm sure there have been many left-of-center intellectuals who have supported the Soviet Union too. He of course does not mention them, reasoning that it does not matter and at the end of the day, fascism and communism might share a lot of burden in the 20th century. If that is the case, what is the reason for his selective, asymmetric outrage toward the right-wingers? You either give examples from both sides or from non if you are unbiased.
The book also suffers from a major factual error when discussing the supposed coup d'etat in Iran. DeLong mistakes Mohammadreza Shah for his father, Reza Shah, going on rants about how Reza Shah was seen as a great resistance to communism between 50s and 70s. This of course is laughable, as Reza Shah was not in power after 1941, and passed away in 1944.
And then there is the dishonesty: anyone slightly familiar with the current political and social currents in US would know that when Americans, which are the primary target of this book, hear the word "social democracy", they think about the policies pushed by the likes of Bernie Sanders, AOC etc. However, DeLong uses that term to describe the period between the end of the WWII, and 1980s, which is actually sometimes called the golden age of capitalism. Building the interstate highway system did not make US a socialist country, and no one in their right mind would call Einsenhover's style of government a social democracy. Here DeLong is simply using the prestige and the good name that this era has to give some good publicity to the term "social democracy".
When covering the post WWII era, DeLong claims that Europe being a more socialist system compared to US was not a given considering the history of the US and Europe. This is such an absurd claim: the modern social security programs were started by Bismark in Germany, which, interestingly, is considered a titan of European conservatism. Looks like even the conservative Europeans have been on the left side of the American mainstream political currents. Much of the American identity is shaped by the fear of big government, emphasis on individualism and property rights, all of which are hallmarks of the political right. Furthermore, the left-leaning movements in US have been much tamer than their counterparts in Europe during the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
As the timeline of the book progresses, the more mundane aspects of politics start to also appear in the book. While the earlier chapters would spray the reader with numbers, and a good chunk of the book is dedicated to discussing the horrors of regimes like Hitler's, Stalin's, and Mao's, it degenerates to the coverage of petty fights between Trump and Antony Fauci during covid. Seriously, if you are a historian writing a book about one of the most eventful centuries of mankind, please leave the guy who left the office 2 years ago out of the picture. This section of the book also did not age well: DeLong engages in another strawman instance in which he accuses Trump to characterize covid as a Chinese bioweapon. This is, of course, not true and dishonest. Trump's claim was that the virus has escaped from the lab, and not that China intentionally made the virus to kill people. Interestingly, the lab leak theory is getting more mainstream support every day, and it is indeed very likely that Trump's assessment was right about the origin of covid.
The parts of the book that do not suffer from factual errors and dishonest coverage are nice, but they do not provide new scholarly research or results. If you are familiar with the major trends and events of the period that the book covers, you will not find much new here. I recommend not wasting your time.
May 5, 2023
DeLong faces the hard task of telling a global history of a long period of time in a relatively short book. He chooses to do so from the standpoint of two of the most influential thinkers of the century, Hayek and Polanyi -- ideas and contingency permeate the narrative, along with, obviously, technology. The result is a pleasant and informative reading, although sometimes it is easy to get infuriated with his style (lots of repetition of catchphrases, for example). The book gets a lot weaker in its last part, which coincides with the author's carreer as policymaker and public intelectual. He confesses his own biases, but allows them to obscure facts and other interpretations. As a whole, though, pretty well worth.
November 10, 2022
Slouching Toward Utopia : An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (2022) by Brad DeLong is a history of de long twentieth century, that is the one from 1870 to 2010. DeLong is an economics professor at UC Berkeley who was a very senior part of the Clinton administration. DeLong actively blogs and is active on social media.
There is a very good and sympathetic review of the book at Econlib by Scott Sumner that is well worth a read.
The book looks at 1870 to 2010 because 1870 is when people in the rich world started to get really rich and the first wave of globalisation took off and the book ends in 2010 with the Global Financial Crisis. He contrasts his history to that of the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm for whom the Russian Revolution of 1917 was the key event. DeLong refers throughout the book nicely to really-existing socialism to refer to the Communist systems around the world.
DeLong subscribes to the view that for the average person things also really did get better. He quotes a lot of figures showing how much richer people got and how fast growth was. The advent of electrification and the internal combustion engine changing the world was remarkable.
Slouching Toward Utopia covers the democratization of the rich world, the end of the Empires, World War 1, the twenties, the Depression, the rise of Communism, Fascism and Nazism, World War 2, The Cold War, the rise of the developing world, the thirty years of great growth from 1945 to 1975 then what he describes as the rise of Neoliberalism, the rise of globalisation and IT and then the Great Recession and the slower recovery since then. There is a lot in the book and any reader would be hard pressed not to learn something new from the book.
DeLong’s great hero is Keynes, he also gives Hayek some praise but also a lot of criticism. DeLong also mentions the Stanford economist John Cochrane negatively a number of times. DeLong also picks a number of embarrassing quotes by Libertarian economists. He doesn’t do the same for centre-left economists.
Slouching Toward Utopia is a fine book that provides a remarkable narrative for the history of the economic and social ideas from 1870 to 19010. Anyone with an interest in economic history will find the book very much worth reading.
There is a very good and sympathetic review of the book at Econlib by Scott Sumner that is well worth a read.
The book looks at 1870 to 2010 because 1870 is when people in the rich world started to get really rich and the first wave of globalisation took off and the book ends in 2010 with the Global Financial Crisis. He contrasts his history to that of the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm for whom the Russian Revolution of 1917 was the key event. DeLong refers throughout the book nicely to really-existing socialism to refer to the Communist systems around the world.
DeLong subscribes to the view that for the average person things also really did get better. He quotes a lot of figures showing how much richer people got and how fast growth was. The advent of electrification and the internal combustion engine changing the world was remarkable.
Slouching Toward Utopia covers the democratization of the rich world, the end of the Empires, World War 1, the twenties, the Depression, the rise of Communism, Fascism and Nazism, World War 2, The Cold War, the rise of the developing world, the thirty years of great growth from 1945 to 1975 then what he describes as the rise of Neoliberalism, the rise of globalisation and IT and then the Great Recession and the slower recovery since then. There is a lot in the book and any reader would be hard pressed not to learn something new from the book.
DeLong’s great hero is Keynes, he also gives Hayek some praise but also a lot of criticism. DeLong also mentions the Stanford economist John Cochrane negatively a number of times. DeLong also picks a number of embarrassing quotes by Libertarian economists. He doesn’t do the same for centre-left economists.
Slouching Toward Utopia is a fine book that provides a remarkable narrative for the history of the economic and social ideas from 1870 to 19010. Anyone with an interest in economic history will find the book very much worth reading.
June 3, 2023
It seems to me that economic history books have a sharply diminishing marginal utility.
February 6, 2023
If this is the best social democratic political economic history of the "long 20th century" then it is no wonder that neoliberals continue to eat the breakfast, lunch, and dinner of social democrats.
March 7, 2024
Excellent, a really helpful insight into world economics and how it has influenced politics over the last 150 years. Also read the prize which details the complete history of oil and its political implications. Round it off with Simon Winchester’s book on land that gives a history of the gradual legalization of property rights over individual and indigenous rights. If you enjoyed those pick up any of Thomas Piketty’s books on economics!
September 21, 2022
This book provides you with the tools to call out BS on economic policy and political ideology!
Full disclosure: I am a recovering libertarian, thanks in part to Brad De Long.
I have been waiting for this book for 20 years, ever since I read some draft chapters that Brad De Long posted in the late 90s on his blog. It has been worth the wait. One of the basic truths of our time is the BS asymmetry principle: “It is much easier to make up lies and BS, than it is to debunk them.”. Brad Delong’s world economic history of the long 20th Century gives you the tools to debunk fake news and call out BS.
For example, many other grand stories (or “narratives”) about the 20th Century (“Age of Extremes” by Hobspawn and “Commanding Heights” by Yergin and Stanislaw) focus excessively on the rivalry of ideas between Marxism and “neoliberalism”, as represented by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. Yet, in the political discourse of the last 30 years, Marxism has mostly been a foil for the right and was supported by only a small minority on the left. The viewpoint that today’s left is nothing else than your Grandpa’s Marxism is an example of fake news. Instead, the counterpoint in the battle of ideas to neoliberalism is identified by Brad De Long as Karl Polanyi and related ideas of European-style social democracy. Polanyi’s key insight was that markets did not just bring explosive economic growth since 1870, but also started to decouple themselves from social relations that used to embed them. For example, it used to be much more natural for CEOs to feel social responsibility, instead of focusing on shareholder value only. The vanguard of this decoupling process was Friedrich Hayek, who argued that unless we let unconstrained markets reign, the state will enslave us all. In contrast Polanyi argued that if nobody deliberately regulates the market, the backlash against untamed markets will enslave us all. Or in the words of John Kennedy: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.“ (Inauguration Speech). It is hard to see Republicans' turn towards MAGA not as basically confirming Polanyi's argument. Hayek vs Polanyi is the central tension that makes you understand the long 20th Century and it continues to shape our lives today. And I applaud Brad De Long for writing about Hayek and especially Polanyi in such a clear and accessible way.
A second strength of this book is that I think it is actually ideologically balanced (instead of being fake balanced like Fox News). Much of the tale of economic growth in the 20th Century is about the pendulum swings in globalization and about technological progress and Brad De Long discusses these trends without falling into the trap of only seeing the positive side of less hunger and less poverty for many. Instead, he emphasizes throughout the long shadow of slavery, privilege and exclusion. Similarly, “government failure” isn’t just the story of corruption and incompetence but also of insufficient intervention and failure to keep markets open for everyone.
Finally, the book is full of little historical gems, are thought-provoking and insightful. For example:
(1) Why did neoliberalism persist as convincing story of the how the world works, both on the left and on the right, when the track record of its policies is quite poor? Brad De Long: Reagan got credit for the fall of the USSR (with lots of hindsight bias about the “inevitable collapse of the Soviet command economy”!) (p.453)
(2) How does pre-1914 globalization differ from post-1989 globalization? Brad De Long: transnational corporate control was infeasible then, but is the norm now (p.483) – this reinforces the notion that anonymous global forces shape local daily life and explains why MAGA's rallies against “Globalism” are effective.
(3) How was fascism and Nazism possible in the heart of civilized Western Europe and Germany, the country of Immanuel Kant, a key philosopher of the Enlightenment? Brad De Long: People failed to respond to market forces destroying the social foundations they are based on. And neoliberals have a pretty sad history of standing up for democracy and constitutional human rights. For example, it is well-known that Milton Friedman supported Pinochet’s fascist regime in Chile in the 1970s. But Brad De Long also shows that even the libertarians Ludwig Van Mises and Friedrich Hayek supported the idea that fascism should be used to halt political movements towards social democracy. (p280) Remember that the next time Rand Paul wants to tell you something about civil liberties!
Full disclosure: I am a recovering libertarian, thanks in part to Brad De Long.
I have been waiting for this book for 20 years, ever since I read some draft chapters that Brad De Long posted in the late 90s on his blog. It has been worth the wait. One of the basic truths of our time is the BS asymmetry principle: “It is much easier to make up lies and BS, than it is to debunk them.”. Brad Delong’s world economic history of the long 20th Century gives you the tools to debunk fake news and call out BS.
For example, many other grand stories (or “narratives”) about the 20th Century (“Age of Extremes” by Hobspawn and “Commanding Heights” by Yergin and Stanislaw) focus excessively on the rivalry of ideas between Marxism and “neoliberalism”, as represented by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. Yet, in the political discourse of the last 30 years, Marxism has mostly been a foil for the right and was supported by only a small minority on the left. The viewpoint that today’s left is nothing else than your Grandpa’s Marxism is an example of fake news. Instead, the counterpoint in the battle of ideas to neoliberalism is identified by Brad De Long as Karl Polanyi and related ideas of European-style social democracy. Polanyi’s key insight was that markets did not just bring explosive economic growth since 1870, but also started to decouple themselves from social relations that used to embed them. For example, it used to be much more natural for CEOs to feel social responsibility, instead of focusing on shareholder value only. The vanguard of this decoupling process was Friedrich Hayek, who argued that unless we let unconstrained markets reign, the state will enslave us all. In contrast Polanyi argued that if nobody deliberately regulates the market, the backlash against untamed markets will enslave us all. Or in the words of John Kennedy: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.“ (Inauguration Speech). It is hard to see Republicans' turn towards MAGA not as basically confirming Polanyi's argument. Hayek vs Polanyi is the central tension that makes you understand the long 20th Century and it continues to shape our lives today. And I applaud Brad De Long for writing about Hayek and especially Polanyi in such a clear and accessible way.
A second strength of this book is that I think it is actually ideologically balanced (instead of being fake balanced like Fox News). Much of the tale of economic growth in the 20th Century is about the pendulum swings in globalization and about technological progress and Brad De Long discusses these trends without falling into the trap of only seeing the positive side of less hunger and less poverty for many. Instead, he emphasizes throughout the long shadow of slavery, privilege and exclusion. Similarly, “government failure” isn’t just the story of corruption and incompetence but also of insufficient intervention and failure to keep markets open for everyone.
Finally, the book is full of little historical gems, are thought-provoking and insightful. For example:
(1) Why did neoliberalism persist as convincing story of the how the world works, both on the left and on the right, when the track record of its policies is quite poor? Brad De Long: Reagan got credit for the fall of the USSR (with lots of hindsight bias about the “inevitable collapse of the Soviet command economy”!) (p.453)
(2) How does pre-1914 globalization differ from post-1989 globalization? Brad De Long: transnational corporate control was infeasible then, but is the norm now (p.483) – this reinforces the notion that anonymous global forces shape local daily life and explains why MAGA's rallies against “Globalism” are effective.
(3) How was fascism and Nazism possible in the heart of civilized Western Europe and Germany, the country of Immanuel Kant, a key philosopher of the Enlightenment? Brad De Long: People failed to respond to market forces destroying the social foundations they are based on. And neoliberals have a pretty sad history of standing up for democracy and constitutional human rights. For example, it is well-known that Milton Friedman supported Pinochet’s fascist regime in Chile in the 1970s. But Brad De Long also shows that even the libertarians Ludwig Van Mises and Friedrich Hayek supported the idea that fascism should be used to halt political movements towards social democracy. (p280) Remember that the next time Rand Paul wants to tell you something about civil liberties!
March 28, 2023
I am economically inept and politically averse. This book fused my least-favorite topics, but I still read it because I am committed to continuous growth in all forms. I am my own inspiration.
I view the economy as an intricate, monstrous beast in which we eventually lose control. At the same time, the way it functions and mobilizes the masses on a fundamental level borders on miraculous.
However, as with all things created by man, the economy is as fallible as its creators. Diseases, Mother Nature and the o-zone layer don't give two squirts about our financial institutions.
DeLong seems to have limitless insight on how the rise of technology, the shifting of geo-political landscapes and the hubris of man all contribute to how the world economy functions. I was amazed at the level of detail in this book. Far, far above my head, but digestible.
Alas, this book used the terms "zeitgeist" and "zenith," words I detest. That'll cost you a star.
I view the economy as an intricate, monstrous beast in which we eventually lose control. At the same time, the way it functions and mobilizes the masses on a fundamental level borders on miraculous.
However, as with all things created by man, the economy is as fallible as its creators. Diseases, Mother Nature and the o-zone layer don't give two squirts about our financial institutions.
DeLong seems to have limitless insight on how the rise of technology, the shifting of geo-political landscapes and the hubris of man all contribute to how the world economy functions. I was amazed at the level of detail in this book. Far, far above my head, but digestible.
Alas, this book used the terms "zeitgeist" and "zenith," words I detest. That'll cost you a star.
December 30, 2022
As a fan of DeLong’s now defunct blog (save for the war liveblogging) I was excited to read this and he did deliver a satisfying ‘sweeping account’. However, the main failure here is that DeLong seems to try to cram every historical event to his overarching thesis and sometimes it comes up short as a result. I was hoping to get an even better version of Levy’s ‘Ages of American Capitalism’ and yet this fell short of that one consistently. I was glad that DeLong did the podcast circuit to promote the book – he is quite the character and enjoy his take on things.
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