The Times They Are A-Changin*
Viktor Shvets, an
investment strategist at Macquarie Bank, doesn’t like the baby boomers,
especially the neoliberal order that generation brought into being. Drawing on
the work of Neil Howe and others ( https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2023/09/my-review-of-neil-howes-fourth-turning.html ) wherein
generational changeovers drive history he argues that the neoliberal order of
1980-2010 is over and we poised enter a turbulent era with the Gen-Z and
millennial generations taking power. He analogizes the coming epoch to that of
the 1930’s where communism, fascism and social democracy fought it out for
global supremacy which set the world on fire in the 1940’s.
To Shvets the change
is being brought about by the merger of financialization with the technological
revolution which is creating an unsustainable income distribution that has
given rise to populism on both the Right and the Left. He calls this the
Fujiwhara effect where two tropical storms merge to create a monster storm. I
would note that his view of fairness is horizontal equity as opposed to
vertical equity where people are free to enjoy the fruits of their labor and
talents.
I am a big fan of
Neil Howe and I have written a thus far five part series on “Reliving the
1930’s” (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2023/11/reliving-1930s-part-5.html ) As result a read
Shvets’ book with some sympathy, but in my opinion he gets more than a few
things wrong. I lived the 1960’s through the rise of neoliberalism as a hippy
protestor to working on Wall Street. I know I am far from being the only one.
However, his boomers are the ones who went to college, not the ones who fought
in Vietnam, went to work in a factory, and suffered through the divorce
epidemic of the 1970’s.
While Shvets is
critical of the individualism of the boomers in the economic realm, he fully
supports their individualism with respect to sex, drugs, and racial tolerance.
Basically, the rebels of the 1960’s won a complete victory in the culture war
and lost the economic war. To me it was no accident that economic freedom went
hand in hand with personal freedom, although you can certainly argue there are
excesses in both areas.
Connecting our era to
that of the 1930’s, Shvets’ believes that ideally, we would have a rerun of 1930’s
America along a path toward Roosevelt-style social democracy that would include
a universal basic income. However, that path might not be viable and it is not
the only path. The social democratic path faces the fundamental reality that in
the “Blue” cities of America that are far down the road toward social democracy
we see abject governmental failure in the form of high taxes coupled with poor
services, failed public education, fiscal bankruptcy, governmental fraud and
the widest gaps between rich and poor. That future is hardly enticing.
Instead, the fourth
turning could lead to a major cultural revolution towards a new religiosity in
society. Where the Gen-Zers and the millennials have substituted
environmentalism, socialism, feminism, and new ageism for religion, in place of
the market fundamentalism of the Boomers, they may ultimately turn to the real
thing. It won’t be the first time America has had a religious awakening, and it
won’t be the first time that history surprises.
*-With apologies to
Bob Dylan
