Students in Associate Professor of Economics Susan Feiner’s class spoke with UMass Amherst professor and author Robert Pollin using an internet videoconference last week about his new book, “Contours of descent: U.S. economic fractures and the landscape of global austerity.”
Pollin’s book argues against the U.S. economic policy known as neo-liberalism, which dates back to the laissez faire (hands-off) economics of the 1700’s and 1800’s which stressed the free market, or an arena where businesses are free to compete with each other. In summarizing his book, Pollin criticized Clinton for campaigning on a “people first” platform and abandoning it. “People-first” was described as a “third way,” or a compromise between conservatives who favor small government and progressives who argue for more government spending on social welfare and public resources.
“The idea — and it’s a good one — was that, in a post-cold war setting, money being spent on the military could be used for education, health care and poverty reduction,” the animated Pollin said. “He abandoned that policy before he even took office” for an essentially conservative policy, he said. Pollin also criticized Clinton’s emphasis on maintaining a budget surplus, widely seen as an achievement. “By the time you get to the last three years [of Clinton’s presidency], the surplus is seen as a good thing in and of itself – not building new schools, cleaning up the environment or reducing poverty.”
Pollin stopped at times to quote from his book, drawing muted chuckles from the class. When he finished his initial presentation and opened the floor for questions, there was a brief pause and a shuffling of feet.
“He’s pretty far away,” Feiner said from the back of the room. “He can’t bite!” The class laughed and quickly warmed to Pollin, who was friendly and appeared eager to talk.
One student asked Pollin, “At what point does spending on the public sector become counter-productive?” Pollin responded with a story about East Germans who were ecstatic to be able to buy different colors and styles of pants after the Berlin Wall was torn down. “It was a mistake to assume the state could control stuff that should be in the private sector,” Pollin said. He went on to point out that government spending “is a good investment, because it’s stable.” He said without proper public controls, free-market capitalism is unstable. He also pointed to the concept of equality. “Even if you’re a completely free market person, you have to create institutions to give some modicum of fairness to the starting line,” he said.
The conversation turned to the so-called “living-wage movement” of which Pollin is a leading advocate. Feiner described the movement in a separate interview: “It’s based on a basic needs budget as opposed to a biological minimum,” she said. “You establish what people need in a month or a year, and you work backwards to an hourly wage for a full-time worker.”
Pollin said that, though the economy surged in the Clinton era, poverty levels were unaffected. “In 1970, the average CEO made 30 times what the average worker did,” he said, reading from his book. “In the 1990s, that figure jumped to 449.” That kind of growing inequality is what Pollin said government spending should stabilize and is one of the reasons he joined the living-wage movement.
John Bronson can be reached at [email protected]