The US is pretty fucked, but if at the non federal level some government can start issuing a fuck ton of bonds and do interesting things, we can see more change.
A basic horseshit politics in the US is to act like nothing is possible without controlling government (super-majorities if needed) at all levels.
We must work around that, because it will not happen reliably. Might need states to start seceding too.
The neat idea is that the extra work from rapid change makes a society richer, not poorer. (There is old "oil spills increases GDP" memes on this front.)
The flip side is
> Today’s neoliberal macroeconomic model depends on limiting economic growth as a way of managing distributional conflicts.
I.e. the stagnation serves a purpose of making labor not too needed and thus pliant. (We get a little tighter labor markets now, and good things because of it.)
The upshot is that if you can score some "against the odds" political victories doing more rapid denser develop development, you will get not only the increased "real" efficiency from better land utilization (and all the other good health, beauty, etc.) benefits, but also extra growth from the expenditures needed to retool things.
Build subway, build a bunch of public housing, increase area population by a few million. This stuff is less ridiculous than it sounds.
A basic horseshit politics in the US is to act like nothing is possible without controlling government (super-majorities if needed) at all levels.
We must work around that, because it will not happen reliably. Might need states to start seceding too.
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Also recommend reading some post-Keynesian things about big projects such as http://jwmason.org/slackwire/climate-policy-from-a-keynesian...
The neat idea is that the extra work from rapid change makes a society richer, not poorer. (There is old "oil spills increases GDP" memes on this front.)
The flip side is
> Today’s neoliberal macroeconomic model depends on limiting economic growth as a way of managing distributional conflicts.
I.e. the stagnation serves a purpose of making labor not too needed and thus pliant. (We get a little tighter labor markets now, and good things because of it.)
The upshot is that if you can score some "against the odds" political victories doing more rapid denser develop development, you will get not only the increased "real" efficiency from better land utilization (and all the other good health, beauty, etc.) benefits, but also extra growth from the expenditures needed to retool things.
Build subway, build a bunch of public housing, increase area population by a few million. This stuff is less ridiculous than it sounds.