If you have the time — a big if — you might drag yourself through this long essay published in The Atlantic, “How the Crash Will Reshape America.” It brings up a lot of interesting details, but the title tells you what you’re in for. If you like a five-miles-up overview of everything going on in the world, the sort of thing that New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has self-branded, you’ll like it.
My view of this genre is not so enthusiastic. First, I can well imagine how the Atlantic’s project was conceived: an editor (or two) decided (or were told) that they must have a sensational cover story to address the “crash,” assuming that Atlantic readers know instinctively that this is the very worst thing that ever happened. EVER! At least, it's the worst in the editor’s minds, and the staffs of these national publications are experts at generalizing from their own experience. They contend to be writing about a problem, but they're inspired by their own concerns.
Second, they claim to identify explanations that everyone else has missed, but these essays (like Friedman’s columns and books) are pretty easy to predict. The problem is us. If only we’d stop living the way we do, believing the things we believe, eating the things we eat, driving the vehicles we drive, “avoiding hard decisions,” then we could prosper. Or, at least, survive the coming crisis.
This sort of journalism is always built on the premise that the author is not blinded by “profit” or “ideology.” In fact, they have their own ideology — they would call it a ‘worldview’ — and it invariably credits intellectuals above everyone else. They have the vision, you see, and if the rest of us would only listen to them everything would be peaceful and everyone would be content. They see grand solutions to everything, rather than reasonable adjustments to practices that are no longer effective.
It’s on this point that the Atlantic article triggered a concern I’ve had for many months. The author writes:
“The Rust Belt in particular looks likely to shed vast numbers of jobs, and some of its cities and towns, from Cleveland to St. Louis to Buffalo to Detroit, will have a hard time recovering. Since 1950, the manufacturing sector has shrunk from 32 percent of nonfarm employment to just 10 percent. This decline is the result of long-term trends—increasing foreign competition and, especially, the relentless replacement of people with machines—that look unlikely to abate. But the job losses themselves have proceeded not steadily, but rather in sharp bursts, as recessions have killed off older plants and resulted in mass layoffs that are never fully reversed during subsequent upswings.”
The Atlantic article doesn't inquire, but I’d like to know when the elected officials in the “Rust Belt” states will recognize that they are increasingly responsible for this decline, and that they have the authority to do something to improve the situation? Michigan has been in recession for over two years. Ohio sank into it well ahead of the rest of the nation. Within these states, certain cities and regions have been in recession for a decade or more.
Rather than alter their approaches, officials in these areas plead for more federal help. And, they raise taxes. Sales taxes. Income taxes. Property taxes. User taxes. They collect everything they can, but the sources are drying up fast. People who can avoid the taxman’s grip move out, so an increasing proportion of remaining citizens are those who rely on the state and local government for employment and/or support.
State and local officials' ideas for economic growth usually involve working with real-estate developers (condos, malls) and casino operators. This satisfies building tradesmen, who often have local government “connections,” but it doesn’t often result in dynamic business activity.
To encourage new businesses the states should cut their corporate income and sales tax rates. To encourage more manufacturing — which is a talking point for government officials, union leaders, and lots of intellectuals, including the Atlantic writer — they’ll have to be more realistic about their environmental regulations and labor laws, too. To make their states more desirable places for everyone to live, they should do what they can to decrease the burden for living there.
My own five-miles-up perspective is that problems don’t get solved at the universal level. Simple solutions are usually best, and fastest, and most of them start as small changes. State and local officials can do this. If they succeed, these solutions can be replicated.
A related point is that we should all remember we are not doomed to live in some expert’s vision of the future. We are very much responsible for our own conditions, and we can change them if we choose to do so.