Global Middle Class Initiative: Latest Articles

Democratizing Capital

Ron Tang — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:53:00 -0400

Below is a longer version of the article published in The Nation. For the version appearing in The Nation, please click here.

Historical analogies are never exact. Yet many of the choices we have before us today are similar to ones that an earlier generation of progressives faced as the 1932 election approached. As we do today, the progressives of the 20th century confronted a society beset by a huge gap between classes and an economy laid flat by the bursting of the speculative excesses of the previous decade. To be sure, our economy is nowhere near Depression levels… more

Undebated Challenges

Articles — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:35:00 -0500

The most damaging part of the Bush foreign policy legacy is not the precipitous decline in American power and influence brought about by the disastrous Iraq occupation. It is the way the Administration’s "war on terror" and its neoimperial project in the Middle East have distorted our vision of the world.

They magnify out of all proportion what should at worst be minor threats to our national security and ignore much larger developments, such as the extraordinary economic rise of China and India, which are having a much more profound effect on the American way of life.

Just how distorted our… more

A Goldilocks World Economy?

Articles — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:22:00 -0500

Over the past decade and half, two developments in the world economy have come together to create conditions for what could be a new era of faster economic growth and rising prosperity. One development involves the integration of China, India and the former Soviet Union into the global economy. The inclusion of these three populous regions into the global economy has created what economists call positive supply-side shocks, resulting in surpluses in labor, capital, and productive capacity. The most obvious impact of China, India, and the former Soviet Union has been on the world's labor market. Their entry into the… more

Our Allies In Iran

Articles — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0500

When Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called last week for Israel to be "wiped off the map," he raised fears not only abroad but also at home, particularly among Iran's sizeable, democratically minded middle class. The new president's confrontational tone threatens to deepen the isolation of Iran's democrats, pushing them further behind his long shadow. Western powers have a dual challenge: to find a way to engage this population even as they struggle to address the new president's inflammatory rhetoric.

By the time Mr. Ahmadinejad was elected in June, a sustained assault by hard-liners had left Iranian democrats disoriented and… more

Reconnecting to the World

Articles — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 03:00:00 -0400

For the sake of party unity, many Democrats last year put aside their differences with John Kerry's foreign policy positions, in particular his tortured support for the war in Iraq. Situating the party as close to the Bush agenda as possible without actually embracing it, it was argued, was a reasonable price to pay for taking back the White House. The gambit -- of being long on national security and the "war on terror" and short on the economy and jobs -- failed, however, to persuade working-class and suburban voters in places like Ohio and Missouri, reinforcing the public view… more

The Market Shall Set You Free

Articles — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Last week President Bush again laid out a faith-based view of the world and again took heat for it. Human history, the president said in his inaugural address, "has a visible direction, set by liberty and the author of liberty." Accordingly, America will pursue "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" -- and Mr. Bush has "complete confidence" of success. Critics on the left and right warned against grounding foreign policy in such nanve optimism (a world without tyrants?) and such unbounded faith.

But the problem with the speech is actually the opposite. Mr. Bush has… more

Dignity, Most of All

Articles — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:00:00 -0400

With little media notice and marginal scholarly interest, a powerful and potentially transformative movement is taking shape across the Middle East. The movement cuts across religious, ethnic and gender lines. It threatens ruling elites. It poses new challenges to the social order. It makes new and urgent demands of civil society. It feeds and animates other movements. And it will reshape the region as we know it, far more than the US invasion of Iraq.

It's the most important movement in the Middle East, and it doesn't even have a name, a political infrastructure or militant supporters. Let's call it… more

Mortgage Markets Will Strengthen Arab Middle Classes

Articles — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0400

Political theorists don't agree on much, but they tend toward a healthy majority on one issue: large, vibrant middle classes spur demands for greater democracy and help sustain democratic institutions.

In recent history, countries that have successfully transitioned to democratic pluralism tend to be those with strong middle classes. South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Mexico and Chile all moved toward greater democracy after developing their economies and building middle classes. The Eastern European states that have shown the healthiest democratic transition -- Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic -- also have the strongest middle classes. Meanwhile, support for democracy in the… more

Where Have All the Big Ideas Gone?

Articles — Sun, 15 Aug 2004 00:00:00 -0400

Each era in American history is defined by a couple of big ideas: the Homestead Act, the GI Bill, Social Security, the Marshall Plan or the race to space. Such major social or economic innovations are usually advanced by our political leaders in response to national turning points. Few would disagree that the United States has reached another historical juncture. Where, then, have all the big -- and good -- ideas gone?

The paucity of innovative thinking is particularly evident in this presidential campaign. President Bush has a couple of big ideas -- … more

The Arab World Needs a Development Bank

Articles — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 00:00:00 -0400

To understand the most pressing crisis facing the future of the Middle East, place a job advertisement in a local newspaper. In Tehran, an ad seeking a clerk for a Western company prompted more than 1,000 applications. Included among them: a PhD in economics, a medical doctor, dozens of software engineers and hundreds of Iran's top university graduates. In Cairo, a senior accountant told me he was shocked at the highly educated who applied for a low-level position with his company.

All across the region, high unemployment, widespread underemployment, and an overwhelmingly young population are putting tremendous pressure on strained labor… more

Keeping our Commitments to American Workers on International Trade

Articles — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 00:00:00 -0500

In 2002, after a nearly decade-long deadlock, Congress passed the most sweeping international trade legislation in 15 years.

By giving the president authority to negotiate new trade agreements, the United States has begun negotiating free-trade agreements with more than a dozen countries. President Bush has already signed free-trade agreements with Chile and Singapore, and he expects to sign at least two more this year.

In exchange for trade negotiating authority, Congress and the administration committed to assist those workers who lose their jobs due to increased imports and shifts in production. Unfortunately, our commitment to these workers has… more

Trade Adjustment Assistance and Offshore Sourcing

Articles — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 00:00:00 -0500

For more than 40 years, the United States has recognized that -- though international trade and global commerce are certainly in the best interests of the United States -- there are those workers that are hurt by trade and globalization in general. During the Kennedy administration, to respond to the needs of those workers the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program was created.

In 2002, the Congress agreed to extend new authority to the Administration to negotiate new trade agreements, but the Congress insisted on a major rewrite of TAA be included in the same legislation to ensure that… more

Rebalancing China, Taiwan

Articles — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 00:00:00 -0500

The Bush administration has a strong record of working to establish democracy abroad. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were motivated by several factors, but in both cases an authoritarian regime was toppled and a foundation laid for a new democratic government.

This record made it all the more striking when President Bush recently seemed to side with the authoritarian Chinese government over the democratic Taiwan. The president's statements discouraged Taiwan from moving toward independence and even indicated displeasure with Taiwan's move to measure public sentiment on Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan through a ballot referendum in the upcoming election.

The… more

Are We Still a Middle-Class Nation?

Articles — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 00:00:00 -0500

In 1909 Herbert Croly, the founding editor of The New Republic and one of the patron saints of the twentieth-century progressive-liberal tradition, published his manifesto, The Promise of American Life. "The Promise of America," he wrote, "has consisted largely in the opportunity which it offered of economic independence and prosperity." According to Croly,

The native American, like the alien immigrant, conceives the better future which awaits himself and other men in America as fundamentally a future in which economic prosperity will be still more abundant and still more accessible than it has yet been either here or abroad ...… more

America's 'Suez Moment'

Articles — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 00:00:00 -0500

Despite its unchallenged military might, the United States has an Achilles' heel: its economy depends on foreign capital. Though hardly anyone acknowledges this publicly, China and Japan already hold so much American debt that, theoretically, each could exert enormous leverage on American foreign policy. So far, the economic dependence of these countries on American consumers has kept them from exercising such power. But what would happen if, for instance, Washington changed its one-China policy and officially recognized Taiwan? Or if the Bush Administration threatened to invade North Korea? Simply by dumping U.S. Treasury bills and other dollar-denominated assets, China --… more

Designing A New Approach to Assist Workers and Communities Respond to Globalization

Articles — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 00:00:00 -0500

The Multipolar World Vs. The Superpower

Articles — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 00:00:00 -0500

A grand strategy, such as it is pursued by the Bush Administration, ultimately rests on the simple idea of a unipolar world -- the notion that the United States is the only power that counts in the world today.

France's Envy for Power

Coincidentally, that is also why neo-conservative advocates are so critical of France's avowed goal of creating a multi-polar world, attributing it to France's superpower "envy."

Yet for all practical purposes, a multipolar world already exists. On a global plane, the United States may appear to be the world's only superpower, spending more than the… more

Trade-Related Labor Market Adjustment Policies and Programs (45 pgs)

Articles — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 -0500

Middle East Democracy -- A Reality Check for U.S. Policy

Articles — Mon, 10 Nov 2003 00:00:00 -0500

There are three reasons to question the emphasis of a U.S. mission in the Middle East. The first relates to whether the United States can overcome the deep legacy of distrust -- and even hatred -- past U.S. policies have created in the region.

U.S. empire for the common good

Neo-conservatives in and around the Bush Administration like to believe the United States is a different kind of hegemonic power.

They assert that the country does not seek imperial advantages and that it uses its power for the common good. In some parts of the world, it… more

Hands off . . . or hardball with Beijing?

Articles — Thu, 25 Sep 2003 00:00:00 -0400

On the just completed trip of Treasury Secretary Snow to China, the focus was not upon human rights, North Korea, or any of the topics that have become the core of U.S.-China relations. Rather the discussion was on China's currency -- the reminimbi or Yuan -- and its peg or government set exchange rate with the U.S. dollar.

This may sound like the dry minutiae only of interest to bankers and Treasury officials, but the peg is an important reason for the more than $100 billion annual Chinese trade surplus, with the attendant tens of thousands of lost U.S. jobs --… more